A Technical Tail
by Technow
Summary: The story of Drobot's childhood. Spin-off from 'The Dragon Chronicles', but can be read without having read 'The Dragon Chronicles'. Warning: Things get a bit weird in chapter 13.
1. Birth

Ch. 1: Birth

A baby dragon was asleep in his shell, which his mother had been carrying around with her for almost six months now and expected to hatch in a couple of weeks.

Average dragon egg incubation time was six months.

The little dragon had spent much of that time trying to break the egg open. Finally, today, he had succeeded.

Veritas, the dragon's cerulean blue-scaled mother, felt the vibrations that came when an egg was hatching. "Constraus! The baby's hatching!" Constraus, the dragon's gold-scaled father, instantly woke up from where he was sleeping on the other side of the cave, and dashed over.

Veritas was covered in cerulean blue scales, with brilliant purple wings and underbelly and a short, yet sleek tail. Unlike many dragons, she had no horns.

Constraus, on the other hand, was a brilliant gold with red wings, underbelly and sharp spines running to the tip of his tail. He had long, straight horns protruding out from the back of his head, giving him an amazingly regal appearance. This regality was lost when he was tripping across a dented stone floor. Constraus was surprisingly clumsy.

Finally making his way across the cavern, Constraus and Veritas watched as a crack split the surface of the egg - then stopped.

"Should we help it?" Constraus asked his mate.

"No. We need to let it get out on it's own," Veritas replied.

Sure enough, after a couple of minutes a tiny, but rigid obsidian-coloured spike stuck out of the gap and, acting like a crowbar, wedged the crack wider. Two small red paws appeared and tore it open even more. Finally, a green-scaled head poked out.

It's muzzle was virtually non-existent, as opposed to it's parents, but four obsidian-like horns that matched it's tail protruded from it's head. One just behind the forehead, pointing backwards, the other three behind his head, like his father's. It had glistening blue eyes, which complimented it's scales surprisingly well. And it had a surprisingly long neck, which was apparent as it stretched out to look around.

The little dragon clawed it's way further out of it's orange shell, revealing it's body to be mostly moss-green, but it's claws as red as thorns. It had long, thick, powerful-looking wings with a red ribbing that perfectly matched it's paws. It had a short, almost (but not quite) stubby tail but extra length was provided by the three twenty-cm sharp obsidian spikes on the end of it's tail.

Veritas picked it up. "Constraus. It's a boy! What should we call it?"

Constraus thought. "How about 'Potestatem'? If I remember correctly, it means 'Power' in the old tongue,"

Veritas nodded. "I like it," She addressed the newborn. "Welcome to the world, little Potestatem. I just know that when you're older, you're going to be amazing,"

**Yes, Potestatem and Drobot are the same person. The reason that they look different will be revealed in later chapters. And 'the old tongue' is just Latin with a different name. I'm sorry that it was so short, but there's only so much detail you can put into somebody's birth. And the next chapter is going to skip ahead ten years or so, so I couldn't put the start of it in this one. Oh, and yes, the name is a play on the Spyro game: A Hero's Tail. Please review and tell me what you think!**

**Oh, by the way, I need recommendations for the name of an antagonist for this fiction. Tell me your ideas in a review and if I pick yours, I will credit you!**


	2. Friendship

Ch. 2: Friendship

Eleven years had passed since Potestatem's birth, and he was at the age when he was being encouraged to go out and spend time with other dragons. Most dragons did this a couple of years earlier, but Potestatem had instead been spending time in a graveyard of Arkeyan robot parts on a nearby Skyland, without his parent's knowledge. He was fascinated by technology and spent ages finding out what it could do and how it worked.

But Veritas and Constraus had eventually found out about his folly and made him promise to go spend time with other young dragons.

"And I never break a promise," Potestatem muttered to himself, shaking his head.

Looking around the area, he spotted a pair of dragons hanging from a rocky outcrop by their tails, suspended by what appeared to be some very strong, thorny vines.  
Even as he ran towards them, Potestatem's mind was already at work as to why they were there. Either a local bully had put them there against their will, or they were just really stupid.

As he got closer, Potestatem realised they were not pure dragon, but dragon hybrids, beings that had been very rare a thousand years ago but as dragonkind's numbers dwindled, were showing up more and more. These appeared to be dragon-unicorn hybrids. One was pure white with purple eyes, and the other was mostly sky-blue, but with a white underbelly and white feathers on the edges of their wings.

"Do you require assistance removing yourself from this predicament?" Potestatem offered.  
He was rather used to 'machine-speak' as the less intelligent beings called it, or 'Arkeyan Programming Code' as it was properly called, and he doubted it was a habit that would be broken quickly.

The white hybrid lifted his head and looked at Potestatem. "As long as you're not going to do anything else horrid to us," he answered.

"Why would I? It is illogical," Potestatem replied, and extended his twelve-foot wingspan in preparation to take off. But a mocking voice from behind stopped him.

"Step away from the hybrids. They're our fish,"

Potestatem turned and cocked his head. "Why would you refer to them as fish? They are obviously beings of the Air element, not the Water element. Just as you appear to be a combination of the Fire and Undead elements. What is your designated call-sign?"

"The name's Shadeblazer, and you'd do well to remember it, punk. I run this place, and you're either with me, or you're dead meat. Free those abominations, and you're dead meat. Got it?"

Potestatem had been accurate. Shadeblazer had black scales, red leathery wings and underbelly, several bone-white, twisting horns and a tail whose tip seemed to be on fire. Plus, she seemed to be female, despite her appearance. Her voice was rough and leathery, and seemed designed to sound cruel.

There were two other dragons with her. One was flaming orange, with a yellow underbelly and wings with blood-red horns and spines, the other was a pale green with a more lichen-coloured underbelly and wings. This one had a longer tail with natural encasements covering its tip.

"My designated call-sign is Potestatem, not 'punk'. And I fail to see how these hybrids are abominations. Will you please inform me of your logical reasoning?" (Potestatem)

"They're abominations because they're half dragon, half unicorn. Such hybrids should not be allowed to exist with us purebreds. Logical reasoning enough for you, punk?" Shadeblazer spat the last word out like an insult.

"But according to my calculations, you yourself are a hybrid. Fifty percent dragon, fifty percent flame demon. And in answer to your previous query, I believe my actions should do the communicating instead of my vocal abilities," And with that, Potestatem took off and expelled a focused barrage of plasma from his mouth.

It cut straight through the vines holding the two hybrids by their tails and dropped them to the ground.

"That's it, you're dead meat, punk. You and me, right here, tomorrow at dawn. The Arkeyan Junkyard and back. No excuses, or I come after you," (Shadeblazer)

"I fail to see what personality you expect me to possess, but the personality I do possess does not allow anything except prolonged relaxation and energy replenishment at dawn. Noon however, is perfectly fine by my specifications," (Potestatem)

"DAWN! Or you'll wish you had never been born, punk," And with that, Shadeblazer turned and stalked away, her two friends following her.

"We shall see exactly who is the 'punk' in this scenario tomorrow," Potestatem said to nobody in particular, and so was surprised when he heard applause. He had almost forgotten the two hybrids were still there.

Since dragons were quadruped, and it was very painful to knock their wings together, dragon-applause was thumping one's tail on the ground.

"Congratulations, brah," the white one said.

"Yeah, it's about time somebody put Shadeblazer in her place," the blue one added.

Potestatem turned back to them. "Who are you?"

"I'm Polarus," the white one introduced himself.

"And I'm Stormee, but everyone calls me Whirlwind. And by everyone, I mean my brother. No one else wants to be friends with us, both because of what we are and because they don't want to risk Shadeblazer's wrath,"

"Yeah, I've never seen any dragon spit fire like that," Polarus added. Potestatem smiled.

"I didn't," And he pulled a small apparatus out of his mouth. "I was born without any breath abilities, so I built my own,"

"Impressive. You were really brave, standing up to her like that. Unfortunately, you're pretty much dead now," Whirlwind added.

Potestatem cocked a brow. "What do you mean by that?"

Polarus answered. "When Shadeblazer challenges somebody to a race, they either die or wish they had. Very few dragons are skilled enough to get through that junkyard. That's the die part. And if you bail, she hunts you down. That's the wish they had died part. The only way to get her to leave you alone is to make it to the finish line - but lose," the hybrid explained.

"And if you win?" Potestatem asked. Whirlwind shook her head regretfully.

"Nobody has ever achieved that,"

The green and red dragon smiled. "Then me and my Arkeyan friends will just have to be the first,"

**Yep, this one's longer than the first one. Shadeblazer was my idea, nobody pitched in and reviewed fast enough. I rather like where this is going, and we've got what should be a very entertaining race for chapter three. I know these chapters are short, but I just upgraded to iOS 7 and I need time to get used to it. I promise I will try to make the next one longer. Please review!**


	3. Competition

Ch. 3: Competition  
It was the early evening. Potestatem had spent the rest of the day with Whirlwind and Polarus, and had quite enjoyed it.

Which was strange, because he wasn't doing anything technological.

The two hybrids had shown him the tree den they were living in, which was a marvel in itself, and they had given him some advice on how to fly well. Being of the Air element, which Potestatem had been correct about, they knew what they were talking about.

"How was your day, Potey?" Veritas asked, using her flaming breath to cook a couple of sheep Constraus had caught for dinner.

The fact that he had caught anything was a miracle in itself. The fact that it looked like it tasted good was nigh on impossible. Usually Veritas had to secretly hunt for the family, and when Constraus got home pretend a friend of hers had given them to her.

"Do not call me 'Potey'!" Potestatem shook his head. "I met a couple of unicorn-dragon hybrids that seemed rather nice, then this girl who calls herself Shadeblazer challenged me to a race tomorrow at dawn. I am uncertain why," Potestatem had learned to tone down the machine-speak around his parents, but sometimes it still slipped through.

"Unicorn-dragon hybrids? Really? Those are rare, and powerful. Assuming you're not making this up, you should stay on their good side," Veritas advised her son.

Constraus roused himself from the far side of the cave. "Did you say Shadeblazer?"

"Yes, father, I did. Why?" (Potestatem)

"I heard a story about a dragon named Shadeblazer horribly mutilating another dragon. I don't think you should go near her, son," (Constraus)

"Father, repeat the three words you said before 'you'," (Potestatem)

"I don't think? I don't understand, Potey," (Constraus)

Veritas couldn't help but chuckle at this.

"Do not call me Potey! Anyway, my point is that I'm going to make my own judgements about people. No matter what you say," (Potestatem)

And with that, he extended his wings and soared out of the cavern.

"He's right, you know," (Veritas)

"What was that, honey?" (Constraus)

"He needs to learn to judge people for himself. And like it or not, that's not something we can teach him. Do try to keep up, you embarrass me sometimes,"

"I embarrass you? What about the time that . . . ."

Potestatem, who had been watching the cave from a nearby outcrop in hopes of hearing something about Shadeblazer, decided this was just going to develop into another mate/mate argument, took off towards the junkyard.

It was a shame he did, because it meant he didn't hear Constraus say "What about that story we heard up at Dragon's Peak abut a female dragon named Shadeblazer bodily tearing off the wings of the one dragon who ever beat her in a race? Do you want that to happen to our little Potestatem?"

To which Veritas replied "He has to grow up sooner or later. Besides, this is Dragon's Peak we're talking about. Untrue rumours are more common than clouds down there,"

Potestatem landed in the Arkeyan junkyard at the bottom of the Misty Mountains. The Misty Mountains were a range of diamond-shaped Skylands (the cone of earth that was underneath most Skylands and a mountain taking up most of the Skyland) joined together by complicated knots of vines the dragons of old had created in order to form a safe place for them to breed. But a couple of them had smallish protruding plateaus a few square kilometres in size at relative ground level. And the Arkeyans had decided to use one of these as a dumping point for obsolete Arkeyan technology.

Potestatem landed on the plateau in question. About three years ago, soon after he first came here, he had managed to reactivate an old Arkeyan Ultron.

AKU-3972082, or Arkor as Potestatem called him, no longer had limbs due to ten thousand years of rust, but his computers were still intact and Potestatem managed to communicate with him using a rewired Arkeyan Robot's head. It's body was nowhere to be seen and Potestatem suspected it had fallen off the island, because there was a rather thin, oddly pancake-like Skyland beneath the junkyard that had a suspiciously Arkeyan-shaped hole in it.

Potestatem knew what pancakes were because someone had set up an exotic cuisine restaurant on one of the other plateaus. Their Japanese pancakes, made with a recipe a Portal Master from Earth had brought to Skylands a couple of hundred years ago, were to die for.

Its body didn't really matter. The head was more than he needed to communicate with Arkor.

He landed in the head now, and booted up the connection. He would have built Arkor a new body, but there weren't enough usable parts around.

"Greetings-Activator-Potestatem. What-do-you-require-of-me-and-my-reactivated-comra des-today?"

Arkor had a tinny, mechanical voice quite similar to Drill-X's. But unlike Drill-X, he was perfectly capable of talking without making everything a limerick. With Arkor's technical wisdom, Potestatem had become quite proficient in technology, and had reactivated several other Arkeyan robots. Including a couple of the five-hundred-foot tall ones. If Potestatem could enlist their assistance for tomorrow's race, it could well provide the unique edge he needed to defeat Shadeblazer.

"I am participating in an operation known as a 'race' tomorrow at dawn. A female dragon/flame demon hybrid will enter the geographical location known as 'the junkyard' soon after dawn. I will be between five time-periods registered as seconds and three time-periods registered as minutes behind her. If the operation is to succeed, the hybrid in question cannot be allowed to leave the geographical location of 'the junkyard' until five time-periods registered as minutes have elapsed since I left the geographical location of 'the junkyard'. You are permitted to obstruct, hinder or distract her in any way you deem necessary, but you are not permitted to physically detain her. Those are your orders. Do you copy?"

"I-copy.-Forwarding-instructions-to-all-other-unit s-I-am-interfaced-with,"  
There followed a period of about ten seconds where Arkor gave off a ticking noise, then emitted a ping not unlike that of a Mabu's kitchen timer. (More or less exactly the same as a human timer)

"Interfacing-complete.-All units-have-received-and-accepted-instructions," Arkor reported.

Potestatem smiled grimly. He knew how to fly, he had the help of his robotic friends, he was as ready for the big race as he would ever be. Now, there was only one thing left to do.

Figuring, correctly, that his parents would still be arguing, and odds were Constraus had burnt his nest to a crisp again, Potestatem took off in the direction of Whirlwind and Polarus' den.

Regular beds obviously weren't comfortable to dragons,as their wings had a habit of getting in the way of comfort, so most dragons slept in bird-like nests, curled up like cats. Potestatem was no exception. His nest was made of wood and leaves, so naturally it was flammable. He had tried putting a metal cover over it, but that just made it smell terrible.

The next day, the three friends were walking towards the starting line of the race Shadeblazer had challenged Potestatem to. He had explained his plan to Whirlwind and Polarus, and all three were feeling much more confident about the race than they had the previous day.

"I still cannot understand how soft that was! How did you achieve that level of comfort?" the green-and-red dragon asked. "Giant clovers," Whirlwind replied.  
"Yeah. They're the softest plant in the Dragon Isles. And they're so large, they can line nests for three dragonoids," Polarus added.

It was almost as if they shared a brain, Potestatem thought. Of course, they are twins, he mentally added.

"Well, look who showed up,"

Potestatem checked the sun. It was just appearing over the horizon. And by the horizon he meant the endless floor of clouds beneath Skylands. People had often gone below it to see what was beneath Skylands. None had ever returned.

"Do not delay, acquaintance of mine. We activate this competition now,"

Potestatem told the other dragonoid.

"If you insist, techno-punk," (Shadeblazer)

"Does your change of use in nickname mean how you see me has changed?" (Potestatem)

"Shut up. Let's let our flying do the talking," (Shadeblazer)

"But flying is generally inaudible," (Potestatem)

"GO!" Shadeblazer yelled, taking off. Potestatem smiled and muttered "If you insist," as he jumped off the edge of the cliff and extended his wings.

Both dragons dove straight down the cliff. Potestatem, remembering Whirlwind's advice, straightened out his long neck and tail, pulled his wings tight to his back while still being flat out, flattened down the single horn on his forehead, moved the three horns behind his head into a drill-like shape and pulled the two of his spikes protruding out from his tail into the middle one so that it looked like they were one. He had discovered this ability to move his spikes and horns at the age of six, when he had been bored and realised a clicking sound was coming from his tail.

Despite his aerodynamic efforts, Shadeblazer was built for speed and steadily edged in front of Potestatem. Which was what he had been counting on.

They soared above the tops of the trees, occasionally hitting a branch. Then Shadeblazer exhibited the ruthlessness Potestatem had heard so much about.

She banked and realigned herself above the other dragon, and slowly pushed down. This was a move designed to push him into the trees, where he would crash, or force him to drop back. It was effective, and it gave Shadeblazer a lead.

Potestatem knew he couldn't pull the same trick, because Shadeblazer would push forwards instead of falling back, but it didn't matter.  
He could see the entrance to the junkyard a couple of kilometres down the slope.

**I hope you enjoyed this. I planned to put the entire race in here, but this just seemed like too good a cliffhanger opportunity to pass up. xshadowclawx, thanks for your recommendation. I know I didn't use it here, but I will try to put it somewhere else. Everyone else - come on! Please review, if for no other reason than so that I know you're reading this.**


	4. Junk

Ch. 4: Junk  
Shadeblazer whistled through the gap between the legs of the dismembered lower body of an Arkeyan robot that served as a gate into the junkyard. She swerved left at the first pile of junk. Potestatem, remembering that that path led to a large fan, (nobody knew why it was there) swerved right. He spotted Arkor's head.

"Arkor! It is time! Code 27!" he yelled as he passed. A giant hollow Arkeyan arm suddenly fell into Potestatem's line of flight. He tucked in his wings and barrel rolled through it. Various pieces of technology launched themselves out of parts of the arm as he soared through it and enveloped him, Iron Man-style. A red-and-gold helmet, four matching boots with installed jet thrusters, and a matching back-mounted power source all enveloped parts of his body, connected and came online by the time he was out of the arm.

He had designed that almost two years ago, just in case. And he really liked the way the red and gold clashed with his green scales. This was the first time he had used it in a real situation though.

Potestatem activated the thrusters on his paws and sped forward, carefully positioning his limbs so that he didn't get burnt.

It was commonly thought dragons were fireproof. While this was true for dragons that commanded fire, dragons of the other elements were as vulnerable to fire as any other being.

Shadeblazer had been flying through her usual route when she realised that the fan whose blades she had dove between countless times had activated and was blowing her back. After about two minutes of this, she decided that was enough, and activated a special, hidden ability of hers that she rarely had call for.

The flame on the end of her tail suddenly expanded to cover her whole body, and having transformed into a dragon-shaped blazing inferno she sucked in and consumed air, stoking herself to a temperature of five hundred degrees Arkyst (the Arkeyan method of measuring temperature, equivalent to human degrees Celsius) and suddenly shot forwards, burning straight through all four fan-blades as they tried to chop her in half. After that, it was as if the whole junkyard was trying to slow her down. Which, thanks to Arkor, it was.

Meanwhile, 'Iron Potestatem' was speeding through the junkyard, as if without a care in the world. A couple of Arkeyan devices whose programming had been irreparably damaged were actually standing and cheering for him. "Potestatem!" "Potestatem!"

"They are supposed to be doing something constructive to slow down Shadeblazer, and yet I cannot help appreciating the audial support," Potestatem muttered under his breath.

After Shadeblazer had dodged the fifth Arkeyan Rip-Rotor, she decided she had had enough of these Arkeyan pests. "Great, now I sound like my mother," she muttered, before letting a simultaneous twin blasts of fire from her tail and her jaws. Both hit an Arkeyan Rip-Rotor that was moving in to attack her. She repeated the trick, hitting another pair, before destroying the last with a well-aimed blazing swipe of her tail.

Shadeblazer had never known her nest-mother. She had been taken in by a female Runt adult, and had learnt a lot from her, and even thought of her as her mother, but two years ago something had happened that was so horrendous she had been disowned. She couldn't remember what, but had the feeling it was something to do with the Skylanders and someone who had claimed to be her long-lost brother. Shadeblazer was younger than she looked, only seven. The Runt female had done something to speed up her growth, so that, to all physical appearances, she was in her late teens. Unfortunately, it had given her more of an affinity with the Undead element than she would have liked, but she still had Fire, and preferred to use that.

After she had been cast out, she had met Insidae and Burn, the Life and Fire dragons who were usually with her.  
Burn was a youngling, only four at the time, and Shadeblazer felt an unusual, almost maternal protectiveness for him.  
Insidae was older, twelve then, fourteen now, and said she was the sister of the Skylander Camo. Camo had wanted to join the Skylanders, but Insidae had refused, and so the two went their separate ways. The two were very similar, except Insidae had wings, fewer horns and a sleeker tail. Apparently Camo had joined the Skylanders very young, at only six. Shadeblazer had found it hard to believe, until she had heard the official news about his first mission. Apparently, strangely, plant-dragon hybrids grew faster than most species. At least, Camo and Insidae had.

A searing energy bolt clipped the edge of her wing, jolting her back to the present. She snarled, and looked around, seeing a rusty Arkeyan Ultron with a smoking . . . . . arm . . . . . . . gun . . . . . . thing. Whatever, she thought, and launched a blast of white-hot flame from her tail, blackening it and knocking it down a hole in the assorted junk. She shook her head and smiled. "Arkeyans,"  
If there was one good thing to be taken from this unexpected battle, that other dragon, the one who had ruined her hybrid torture, (a vicious smile came over her muzzle at the thought of the torture) was surely dead by now. The Ancients knew why they were suddenly activating and attacking her, and probably him too, but if his flight down the mountain was anything to judge by, he was already dead.

Potestatem had never felt so alive.

"Perhaps I should participate in this activity more often. It is providing enjoyment at levels I have not previously witnessed," he muttered to himself, filing the information away for later use. An Arkeyan Drone appeared alongside him. "Sir, the hybrid has defeated our defenses and is moving towards the exit at a velocity matching your current one,"

"How far ahead of me is she?" Potestatem didn't have time to use the long words he generally did when talking to robots, so he just hoped it would understand.

"I cannot comprehend, sir,"

"What is the difference in remaining distance to the perimeter of the junkyard for me and her?"

"You are 2.394 time-periods classified as 'minutes' ahead of her. This information was provided by AKU-3972082," Potestatem nodded happily.

"Excellent work Arkor," he muttered, then remembered the drone. "You are dismissed. Communicate to AKU-3972082 that he is performing perfectly and the operation is going well,"

The drone saluted with it's little mechanical arms and whirred away.

Potestatem said a word that no dragon his age should know, let alone use, tapped the boots on his hind legs together, and rocketed forwards.

He had found some experimental Artificial Arkeyan Portal (or, ironically, APP for short) technology, and while it couldn't convey physical matter, he had managed to get it to carry radio signals between the worlds. He was a very big fan of Codename: Kids Next Door, and had taken inspiration for several inventions from it. Including his rocket boots.

Shadeblazer flared through everything the Arkeyans threw at her. Even an Arkeyan Copter Potestatem had reactivated with weeks of painstaking work. He was going to need to do that all over again. Then she spotted the other dragon. Somehow, he had survived. Unscathed! And where did that new equipment come from? He hadn't been wearing that before . . . . . And then Shadeblazer put two and two together. And she hated four.

She blazed her way towards him. Potestatem, spotting her and her murderous fury, realised she knew what had happened and he'd have to keep ahead of her to survive. "This is going to prove an interesting, yet very difficult challenge. And yet I must complete it if I am to survive," he muttered to himself.

He instructed his boots to multiply the burn-off by 0.4% and was just about to pass through the edge of the junkyard when Shadeblazer rammed into him in mid-air, setting herself alight as she did so. The two twisted uncontrollably in mid-air, heading towards the metal wall of the junkyard.

Shadeblazer's burning body tore a hole right through it, Potestatem literally bending over backwards to avoid getting caught in the dragon-shaped hole. He had to deactivate the boosters because they were now pointing the wrong way and pushing them down through Skylands.

Now that he had a closer look at Shadeblazer, he realised her wings were rimmed with tiny, but deadly sharp spines. Which could probably cut straight to his bones. If he kept himself tucked close, Shadeblazer would be unable to hurt him without hurting herself, but if he did that, they would both plummet down to the surface of the clouds below Skylands, possibly never to be seen again.

"I-recommend-choosing-a-moment-when-she-is-geospat ially-below-you-then-activating-the-boosters-and-p ushing-away-from-her.-She-will-recover-momentarily -and-this-will-give-you-a-small-scale-time-advanta ge-over-her,"

Potestatem cocked his head on surprise. "Arkor? For what period of time have you had a direct communications uplink with my helmet's internal computers?"

"It-was-a-recent-upgrade-I-calculated-might be-necessary-for-this-operation.-Data-received-fro m-external-sources-indicated-such-measures-should- be-taken. Optimal-extrication-point approaching-in-six-seconds," Potestatem counted the seconds, then pushed away from the hybrid and reactivated his jets. Shadeblazer, who couldn't hear the discussion between Potestatem and the Arkeyan A.I., was taken by surprise and thus floundered for a second before getting her balance back and soaring after Potestatem.

They were flying almost directly upwards, which is absolutely exhausting - if you don't have a booster like Potestatem did. However, Shadeblazer literally fired herself forwards, by expelling a jet of flame out of her tail, and managed to almost catch up.

Whirlwind, Polarus, Insidae and Burn, the latter two of which had arrived shortly after the race had started, watched with bated breath.

The force of the air, despite Potestatem being as streamlined as possible, was pushing against him heavily. Luckily, Shadeblazer was having the same problem, since she had never heard of drafting. They were moving at more or less the same speed, but Potestatem was ahead by about half a meter.

He blazed through the finish line, Shadeblazer barely a second behind him.

But he'd won.

Whirlwind and Polarus whooped. So did Potestatem, causing him to lose focus on where he was going and crash into a tree. The two hybrids rushed over, their horns glimmering with colour. Together, they immediately healed Potestatem. "How did you achieve my bodily restoration so quickly?"

"Well, us unicorn-dragon hybrids may not be fast, or great fighters, but there is one thing we can do that nothing else can. Shoot healing rainbows from our horns," Polarus explained, then Whirlwind cuffed him in the stomach for saying they were slow and bad fighters.

Shadeblazer came up, and the three dragonoids tensed, expecting fireworks. But then she reacted in the most unexpected way possible. "Good race," she told Potestatem, extending her paw for a shake. Potestatem warily shook it.

"Why don't you come over to my place tonight, for a - what do the other species call it, a, uh,"

"Sleepover?" Potestatem supplied.

"Yeah, exactly. That was a strange race, and I'd love to know how you bent every Arkeyan in that junkyard to your will. I'll meet you back here at six, and your hybrid friends can come too, if they want. So, see you then?"

Potestatem nodded, Insidae and Burn joined Shadeblazer and the two groups separated.

"What are you doing?" Whirlwind asked nervously.

"I once heard keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. You're my friends, so I'm keeping you close, and she's my enemy, so I'm keeping her closer,"

"Just don't keep her close enough to gouge your eye out,"

**Okay, only one more chapter of 'A Technical Tail' to go before the spoiler is negated and I can get back to 'The Dragon Chronicles'. I hope you all enjoyed this one. And I was watching 'Iron Man 3' while/just before writing parts of this, so if you could see any similarities, that's why.**


	5. Complication

Ch. 5: Complication  
"Arkor, when you mentioned 'external sources' during the operation five time-periods known as hours previously, what did you mean?" It was just before midday. Five hours ago, Potestatem had beaten Shadeblazer and received the curious invitation. There had been something bugging him about the race, some small detail that didn't fall into place at all, and, with the help of Whirlwind and Polarus after he had recounted every detail of the race to them, he had finally worked it out.

"I am sorry, that information is classified, sir," But something was still wrong. It wasn't Arkor's normal, tinny, mechanical baritone that sounded like it took a new breath for each individual word. Rather, it sounded like somebody trying to imitate Arkor without having ever actually heard him. It was a surprisingly good effort, but whoever it was fell down in that they spoke multiple words in the same breath.

And Arkor had never, in the three years since he had accidentally booted him up, called him 'sir'. It was always 'Activator-Potestatem' or not referring to him by name at all. Potestatem flew towards the junkyard, where he would plug his helmet into a more advanced tracking device.

After a second's thought, Potestatem realised that it might be potentially more beneficial to pretend he hadn't noticed whoever had hacked into Arkor's systems. "Precisely what message do you intend to convey by instructing me that such information is classified?"

Whoever it was said the exact same thing as before. "I am sorry, that information is classified, sir,"

As he connected his helmet to the Arkeyan Tracker, Potestatem decided he had had enough. "Alright, enough sheeplay. Who is this and what have you done with Arkor?" Sheeplay was the Skylands equivalent of horseplay, because due to some strange interdimensional quirk, horses existed on Earth but unicorns didn't, and unicorns existed in Skylands but horses didn't. There were hundreds of theories as to why.

"What are you talking about, sir? I am Arkor,"

"No, you are not. Arkor would never refer to me by a title as simple, non-linguistic and above all stereotypical as 'sir'. And your manner of speaking is completely unlike Arkor's. Or any Arkeyan robot I have ever met. Who is this? Do not make me trace the connection,"

"Uh, you can do that?" Whoever was at the other end of the line had by now dropped all pretences of being Arkor. "I'm doing it right now. I've already triangulated your position to the Eastern-West section of Skylands. I'll have geographical co-ordinates in ten seconds,"

A dull, senseless drone sounded as the connection was severed. Potestatem checked the label on the tracker unit. "AKAI-4928639042, I am issuing an operation with two priorities. Your mission is to track that signal. However, if doing so will cause irreparable damage to yourself or the greater local Arkeyan network, you are to withdraw immediately. Does this operation fall within your known achievement abilities?"

A faint whirring was audible as the machine calculated. Ten seconds later, it answered. "This operation falls within my known ability parameters. Do you wish me to commence operation at present moment?"

"Commence tracking operation, AKAI-4928639042," Potestatem ordered the machine.

"Commencing operation now. I will communicate to AKU-3972082 of it's result," Potestatem registered the last sentence and remembered why he was doing this.

"No. Do not communicate anything to AKU-3972082. I believe he is malfunctioning. Communicate to all units other than AKU-3972082 that all unnecessary communications to AKU-3972082 are to be ended without AKU-3972082 being communicated to with the subject of anything related to the blockage. Do you understand these specifications?"

"I understand these instructions and specifications. Do you wish me to perform any other operations?"

"No, AKAI-4928639042, that is all I require you to achieve at present," And with that, Potestatem walked away.

That evening, Potestatem had checked in on AKAI-4928639042, but he was still tracing the signal. It was strange, he was usually done by now. His report had been that there was some kind of force-field protection around the location preventing him from getting a lock on it. However, his data indicated that he should be able to obtain the co-ordinates in a matter of hours.

Potestatem had walked away, muttering "Those Arkeyans were pure evil, but they sure knew how to build a computer. I wish I could meet one, find out how they did it, but they're all dead,"

Now him, Whirlwind and Polarus were standing outside a grotto at the inner edge of the forest. This particular Skyland was a mountain with a 0.5 to 0.7 kilometre ring of forest around it. The grotto was set into the bottom of the mountain, just on the inner edge of the Skyland. It had a wider entrance than most dragon lairs, which meant either the place was bigger than it looked, or they would be spending a very cold night in there.

"I have no idea how you talked us into this, brah," Polarus told Potestatem, worry lines evident on his face, despite it being covered in white fur, and the solitary horn on his forehead messing around with the worry lines. His nervousness was most evident in the way his long, lapine ears drooped down the back of his head instead of sticking up like they normally did. Whirlwind's ears were in the same position, and a frown was embedded across her small, hooked, beak-like muzzle.

Shadeblazer landed in front of them, furling her wings against her spine. "Well? Don't just stand there in the cold, come on in!" She was smiling, but her eyes were unreadable. Whirlwind gulped, but obediently followed her brother and Potestatem in.

Shadeblazer touched her burning tail to a vine, and the fire burnt along it like a fuse, igniting a series of torches that revealed the cavern to be far longer than it originally appeared to be. There was a small, perhaps five-metre-by-six-meter room at the start, (it was small by dragon standards, however humans would no doubt find it somewhat spacious) which led to a passageway that spiralled upwards, then downwards, then went in a direction none of the three dragonoids could guess at, as the tunnel's twisting had cost them all sense of direction, before finally opening out into a single large cavern with five other smaller archways leading off it, which, together with the passage to the outside world, formed a hexagon.

The furthest to the right was decorated with ceramic flames, the one opposite that was entwined with vines and other floral blooms, the central arch was structured with pale white bones that the trio really hoped weren't real, the one between that and the flaming one was a complicated array of gears, and the last doorway, positioned between the one decorated with flowers and such and the one engraved with bones, looked to be plain at first glance, but as Polarus' curiosity won out over his cautiousness and he moved towards it, it was revealed to be obsidian with various runes and markings carved into it.

"They're here, you can come out now!" Shadeblazer called.

Burn stepped out of the flame-engraved archway, Insidae strutted out of the third, and a dragonoid neither Potestatem, Polarus or Whirlwind recognised wandered out of the archway decorated with cogs and gears. But all three knew to think of this newcomer as a 'dragonoid', not a 'dragon', because the fact that he had grey, feathery wings and tail that glistened in a similar way to how Polarus' underbelly glistened, which perfectly complimented his gleaming, silver scales. He was hornless, and, unlike many dragons, had no spines protruding from his back, but the fact that a pair of almost reptilian fangs protruded from his mouth was the serious clincher. Though perhaps the most surprising thing was that he was wearing spectacles that didn't quite fit.

Shadeblazer gestured to the newcomer. "I don't believe you've met Cogshine. I'd be surprised if you had, considering he rarely leaves the cave. Can't blame him, asked on his heritage,"

Whirlwind raised a furred brow at this. "His heritage?"

"He's half dragon, half sphinx. Take it from him, that combination does not go down well. Dragons prefer the cold, sphinxes prefer the heat, he's uncomfortable in both. Dragons can't eat most vegetables, sphinxes find it hard to eat meat, so he has a very limited diet, and due to the fact that hybrids like him were never really intended to exist in the first place, his mother died giving birth to him and his father thought he wouldn't survive, so he was abandoned. Sphinxes can be cruel like that. The only reason he's even alive is that this toymaker and his weird clockwork robot found him and cared for him in the first couple of years of his life. Then the toymaker went and got himself killed in some dumb experiment, the robot defended him from an invading army of Cyclopses that wanted the toymaker's secrets but got badly damaged in the process, me and my mom found him obsessively trying to fix the robot and took him in, and we've stuck together ever since," Shadeblazer explained.

"Way to make a mockery of my life story, Shade," Cogshine replied, shaking his head. His voice was high and lilting, and it sounded like he was having a hard time forcing the words through his disproportionate fangs.

Inwardly, Shadeblazer retched. Putting on the nice, caring image of a good, kind-hearted soul, as she had been all day, was making her feel sick to her core. The truth of the matter was, Cogshine had been instrumental in the toymaker's demise, the robot had come out of the fight perfectly unscathed but Cogshine had reprogrammed it for a more malevolent take on things, and eventually he had fallen in with their group. And all that stuff about the problems with dragon-sphinx hybrids were total fiction. Cogshine could survive most temperatures and eat almost anything, but he still fell down in dairy. The only true part of what she had just told Potestatem, Whirlwind and Polarus was what had happened to his parents, and how the toymaker took him in.

The robot, what did Cogshine call it, Upwind, Wind Above, Wind something, was in perfect working order, but she had instructed Cogshine to make it look beaten and damaged to fool the three incompetent dragonoids so that she could exact her revenge.

Potestatem, she was glad to notice, looked intrigued. He whispered something to the two disgusting hybrids she had reluctantly agreed to let taint her precious cave, then walked over to Cogshine.

"I would advise you to try to remain nearby that Insidae dragon. She appears to be less evil than the other two,"  
Polarus frowned. "What are you going to do?"  
"I'm going to take a look at this robot,"

Potestatem walked over to the hybrid. "Let us take a look at this robot, my friend," The two dragonoids walked into the gear-lined archway. Whirlwind and Polarus moved over to Insidae. "So, can we expect anyone else here?"

"No, why?" the Life dragon replied.

"That fifth arch," Polarus told her, indicating the black, obsidian one. "Burn lives through that arch, Cogshine lives through that one, Shadeblazer in that one, you in this one, but who lives in that one?"

"Come through in here. Shade's kinda touchy about the subject. Oh, and avoid the red plants with black dots, they rather hurt if you're touching them without plant insulation. My skin's good enough for me, but something tells me you two shouldn't take the chance," The two hybrids followed the green dragon through the short passageway, being careful not to touch any of the said flowers. And emerged in what looked like a massive natural greenhouse.

There were plants of every shape, size, colour and description in this room. There were plants that almost resembled open Chompy Pods where the plants around them had for some reason grown into them, creating remarkable natural beds. There were massive trees that bent over and formed an oddly redundant roof with their leaves and branches, there were bushes, flowers, vines, saplings, if it existed anywhere on Earth or Skylands, chances were at least one was here.

"Take a seat," Insidae gestured to some rather thick-looking bushes that a layer of the giant clovers the two hybrids used to make their beds had grown over, forming a semi-natural couch. "So, you wanna know about the Darkarch? It's all about Shadeblazer's brother,"

Potestatem followed Cogshine into his room. It was sparse, if exquisite. And high-tech. There was a nest made from a couple of gears and some leaves that Insidae had no doubt provided, orange paint which, considering Cogshine didn't have thumbs, must have taken a while, assuming he didn't get some machine to do it or something, and a variety of mechanical pieces strewn all over the place.

But the centre of the room was devoted to a raised platform made from a gear. And just above that platform, suspended by a series of wires that reminded Potestatem of a Mabu puppet show Veritas and Constraus took him to when he was younger. But this was a very strange puppet.

When it was intact Potestatem could see it being similar to a gremlin in bodily structure, but that was where the similarities ended. It's body was painted orange and navy blue, there would be a giant key protruding from it's head, it's hands would be three-pronged claws that looked to be able to clip together into a drill-like form with two smaller keys sticking out of them, and, taking a closer look at the joints, he could see that the positions where the arms and legs were attached to the main hub would be an ingenious combination of magnets and ball joints. If it were intact.

As it currently was, there were deep gouges all over it's body, the key on the top of it's head was missing, one arm, magnet joint and all, was hanging away connected to the rest of the machine only by a couple of thin wires, and his closer examination revealed several small internal gears to be missing.

Potestatem got to work.

**Okay, so I was planning to have something else in here, but I ran out of room. And we've got another future Skylander in the mix.**

**No, it's not Cogshine. It's his robot. Be honest, how many of you recognised it as one of the newer Tech Skylanders, Wind Up? If you read his bio, you'll know what I mean by the toymaker bit. Oh, and I still have one more chapter of this to go before I get back to 'The Dragon Chronicles'. Please review! Peace!**


	6. Mutilation

Ch. 6: Mutilation

"Have you been moulting?" Potestatem asked the hybrid who was sitting in the corner, watching him work, as the young dragon picked up one of many silvery-grey feathers strewn around the floor. "Yes, because I've been so worried. Please tell me you can fix Wind Up. I've been trying for the last two years, but whatever our father did to make him, he never told me and while I have gotten some of the basic motor functions to work, I have no idea how to wake him up," Cogshine was glad of the protective mask Potestatem had insisted he don while he was working, for it hid the emotions that were flying across his face.

Cogshine was nowhere near as good an actor as Shadeblazer was, indeed it was all he could do to keep himself sounding worried. He knew exactly what to do to fix Wind Up, indeed his adoptive father had even given him some of his technical magic, which meant Cogshine could literally fix the robot in three minutes. But it was critical to Shadeblazer's plan that the robot seem to be broken when Potestatem arrived - and that Potestatem was the one to fix him.

Insidae started explaining. "You see, about three years ago, when Shadeblazer was little, she had a little brother. He had only just been adopted when their mother cast her out for some reason that she doesn't really know. But we're pretty sure it's related to the Skylanders,"

Polarus nodded, but Whirlwind looked confused. "How is this related to the arch?"

"Shadeblazer obsessively believes that destiny will bring her lost brother back to her someday. Giving him a room in here is her way of making sure she never forgets him,"

Polarus nodded, deep in thought. "So that's why she's so cruel and bitter all the time,"

"One theory, at least," Insidae answered. "It could also be that she was brought up being taught that that was the only way to be in charge - picking on those who couldn't be. Or she could just enjoy it. I don't, that's for sure,"

"Wait, what?" Whirlwind drew up short. "If you don't like picking on people like us, why do you?"

Insidae shook her head regretfully. "It's more staying with Shadeblazer than picking on people. Back when I met her, she seemed a lot nicer. But then she started acting al cruel, and I knew that if I tried to leave her posse, she'd hunt me down. The only way I'd be free of her would be her death - or mine,"

"Skylands is an enormous world. There are a lot of things you could do to escape her. You could - you could join the Skylanders, you could become a subject of King Ramses, anything," But Insidae shook her head again.

"It would be impossible to escape her. I wish I could, but in my current situation it can't be done,"

Potestatem finished welding the last of the connections to the robot's body. "There," he stated, tapping his tail on the ground in a satisfied manner. He had repaired the connections of Wind Up's severed limb and restored all of his circuitry and mechanics. The gashes were still visible, and it would probably need a new paint job, but otherwise the robot looked pretty good.

"I'm guessing you want a place to sleep. Go over to Insidae's cavern, and avoid the black plants with red dots," Cogshine cursed. He had been so impressed with Potestatem's work, he had momentarily let his act slip. Luckily for him, the green dragon didn't seem to notice as he left the cavern. "Did I say black plants with red dots, or red plants with black dots?" Cogshine muttered. "It must be these spectacles. They still contain bits of my father's magic, and it's rubbing him off on me,"

Whirlwind, Polarus and Insidae's surprisingly friendly conversation was cut off by a scream of pain coming from the entrance tunnel to the greencave.

"I think Potestatem just trod on a red plant with black dots," Insidae guessed as the three dragonoids ran back into the tunnel.

About two hours later, all three guests were asleep on various foliage-nests that Insidae must have grown, although she refused to admit it. Potestatem's foot was bound in a cast of vines with a lavender healing poultice, also created by her.

Insidae was wide awake, having a conscience attack as to whether to let Shadeblazer carry out her plan or not.

Eventually, she decided she had to at least try to stop this, and made her way to the door to confront Shadeblazer. Unfortunately, Shadeblazer must have seen this coming, because the door suddenly filled with an impenetrable blaze of fire, barring her access. Then the entire chamber filled with a gas Insidae had developed herself. It put anyone who breathed it in into a deep sleep until another, wake-up gas was released.

She knew there was no way to countermand it, unless you could hold your breath for several minutes or hours. So the only thing she could do was hold her breath until she was back in - or at least near - her nest. That way, at least Shadeblazer wouldn't know about her attempted treachery.

Insidae collapsed in a heap right near her foliage-nest as she couldn't hold her breath any longer and collapsed in a heap on the soft, flowery, vine-ridden floor. And then convulsed as a thorn tore into the soft, ocean-blue membrane of her wing. Sadly, the pain was not enough to wake her up.

The plumes of flame at the entrance died down, revealing Burn with his head and chest on the ground and his tail in the air like that of a scorpion's, crouched as if he were in the middle of a push-up. Which, in a way, he was. He was 'pushing' the flames 'up' from the ground. Cogshine chuckled as that analogy crossed his mind as Shadeblazer stalked past the both of them. Ignoring Insidae's unconscious form, and Whirlwind and Polarity contentedly snoozing together on a rather large, leafy ledge, she stopped in front of Potestatem's unconscious form.

"Ah, sweet, sweet revenge. Unfortunately, revenge can be a little . . . . messy, sometimes, but I'm sure Insidae will forgive me for the mess. After all, she knows what will happen if she doesn't," Then she checked herself. "I'm still sounding like my mother. I've gotta stop being so blazin' melodramatic!" Shadeblazer knew it was incorrect grammar, and used it on purpose to sound less like her mother.

"Cogshine! The robot!"

Wind Up appeared behind Cogshine, moving quickly and silently, due to Potestatem's own modifications. The drills at the ends of his forearms clicked open into three-pointed, razor-sharp shurikens that started emitting a humming noise as the miniature motors driving them came to full capacity.

He moved towards Potestatem with mechanical precision, already calculating the angles and deciding on the best method of carrying out his instructions. Potestatem was sprawled on his side, his legs tucked into the circle made by his long, serpentine neck and tail, giving him the appearance of an Ouroborus. But his wings were outstretched. And that was all Wind Up needed as his rotating blades cut first into scaly flesh, then into muscle and tendons, and finally through bone and cartilage.

Potestatem's severed left wing flopped onto the grassy, flowering floor as blood flowed out of it and his destroyed joint. It was a testament to Insidae's gas that he slept still. "Burn! Seal this wound! We can't have him dying on us, that will completely ruin the revenge! Aaargh, I still sound like my mother!"

Burn obediently stepped forward and breathed a bit of fire over the four-inch nub of disconnected muscle that was all that was left of Potestatem's left wing, sealing the wound temporarily, as Wind Up started on the right wing.

Once that was over with, Shadeblazer turned her attention to his horns. She single-handedly bent the three horns at the back of his head forwards, a direction they were not designed to go, and thus tore them out of their sockets. Having done that, she did the same thing to the two side horns on his tail, but decided to leave one horn on both his tail and his head.

"No one beats me in a race. Cogshine! Tell that robot of yours to carry the three of them out. That thing first. He's bleeding all over Insidae's floor," She indicated Potestatem, and the robot obeyed her commands, dragging him out through the tunnel. "And Burn! Burn these things to cinders. But I think those horns will make nice decoration for my nest. Cogshine, you can do that tomorrow. I'm taking a nap,"

"Uh, and Insidae?" Cogshine asked, somewhat nervously.  
"She would have tried to stop me if not for Burn's fire, so, let her sleep for a month or two. That should give her a nice appetite when she wakes up,"

Dragons could live for thousands of years, and when a dragon reached that age, they could sleep for a month or so and think nothing of it. The oldest known dragon in Skylands was almost seven thousand years old. However, Insidae was only about fourteen, so sleeping for a month at that age wouldn't leave any lasting effects, but would make her ready to eat a whole flock of sheep when she woke up. And when the time came to wake her up, for Insidae was too important to be abandoned like that, Shadeblazer would enjoy tormenting her with food.

**I hated writing this chapter. Which is why it took me so long to finish. Well, long by my standards. But anyway, now that I'm past the 'Potestatem-mutilation' bit, I can finally get back to writing 'The Dragon Chronicles'. Oh, and there's something I wanted to tell all of the readers. In my fiction, everything is connected. Even the tiniest detail can have far-reaching consequences. And for you Insidae fans, don't worry, I've got a plan for her to escape Shadeblazer later in 'A Technical Tail' without either of them dying. It's odd. My original plan was that this was just a bit of side-history to explain Drobot a bit better, but I've realised I can, and will, do so much more with this.**

**I really need to stop rambling. Peace!**


	7. I Am Drobot

Ch. 7: I Am Drobot

As Potestatem came to once more, he became aware of a throbbing, almost unbearable pain at the back of his head, the end of his tail and the joints of his wings. Nearby, Whirlwind rolled over to face him, yawning, with her eyes closed, and sleepily muttered "Not now, brother, I'm still asleep,"

Polarus, however, was wide awake, as he had been thrown into a small depression in the ground - with Whirlwind on top of him. Her one-eighty-degree roll had revealed him squeezed into the whole, wings spreadeagled due to his sister's lying on the joints. "Finally!" Polarus groaned, standing up, returning his wings to their normal position, and shaking the dirt out of his fur. "Whirlwind, when we get home, you are going on a diet!"

"Can you check my body, please? I am experiencing large amounts of pain and would like to know the cause," Potestatem asked the angry hybrid matter-of-factly. Polarus, still grumpy, turned - and gasped in horror as the image of Shadeblazer's mutilations came over him.

"What is the problem?"

Polarus numbly beckoned him over to a nearby puddle, where Potestatem saw his injuries. "Oh dear," Polarus then registered that Potestatem was still losing blood at a worrying rate. "Dude, we have gotta get that patched up,"

The mutilated dragon suddenly collapsed, a wave of dizziness coming over him. "Get me to the junkyard. There are things there that can save me,"

Polarus roused Whirlwind, and, as soon as she had gotten over her shock at Potestatem's condition, they together managed to lift the young dragon across the forest and the narrow gap between Skylands to the junkyard.

Potestatem, upon landing, staggered over to Arkor's cockpit. "Arkor? Activate Emergency Protocol AKI99. Codename: Ultimate Cheatcode,"

Another hollow Arkeyan limb trundled it's way over to Arkor's communications helm, pulled by an Arkeyan DrillTrain M3, which was quite similar to Drill Sergeant, but it trailed half a dozen carriages behind it, and this particular one had lost both arms to ten thousand years of rust. The hollow Arkeyan arm was mounted upon the carriages.

The carriages were originally designed for carrying rocks out of mines, but Potestatem had found another use for them.

He looked at Whirlwind and Polarus. "Go. I do not know what period of time I will be inside this area for,"

And with that, green dragon jumped into the limb, and it sucked him through and down into a hollowed-out Arkeyan Robot body that was already filled with a synthesised liquid-like substance designed to artificially reproduce the conditions inside a dragon's egg, where the substance would spread through an injured being's body and deactivate multiple parts of the being in question's internal systems, one of which was the nervous system, preventing him from feeling any pain while inside it. Something could literally tear his body to pieces, and he wouldn't feel a thing. It also deactivated his lungs and provided his brain with all the oxygen necessary, so he didn't need to breathe.

This would also return Potestatem to the semi-conscious state he had possessed while his organic body was created, and, if it worked properly, should do a better job of restoring his body than he could ever do without it. Unfortunately, while it would stabilise Potestatem's condition, it could not regrow the parts of his body that had been removed, and unless Potestatem's injuries were far less serious than he thought, he would have to stay in this vegetative, semi-conscious state for eternity, or find another solution to the problem. The synthesised substance prevented ageing, to all ends and means, so in theory it was possible to be in there forever.

So Potestatem did what he did best. Think.

And over time, he formulated, designed, built and fine-tuned his greatest invention ever.

It was a stroke of genius, something that he laboured over in his Arkeyan womb for an unknown amount of time - for it was impossible for him to measure the passing of time from a place where time never moves an inch - and finally, it was done. He had created a battle suit.

Potestatem had started with his head, designing implants into his very cranium through the wounds Shadeblazer had inflicted, which were built to send messages directly from his brain to his technology as if it were part of his body, for he knew that to survive, he would need to make this technology part of his body.

He had then used the head of an Arkeyan Scout that was internally damaged beyond repair, and adapted it into a perfect helmet, with a special casing for his one remaining horn, metal teeth, since Shadeblazer had removed most of his original ones, and a special sealant around his neck that could trap a modified version of the womb-goop inside it and, for good measure, he had adapted the lightning technology from Arkeyan Rip-Rotors into laser beams that fired when he blinked, because, due to the substance on the inside of his helmet keeping his eyes moist, he no longer required to blink. He had gotten used to not blinking inside the techno-womb.

He had then focused on his injured tail, building a long, tall pyramid designed to launch a titanium gear he had sharpened, making it lethal. Some technomagical Arkeyan missile launchers that were enchanted to never run out of ammunition were also adapted into the design. It also had the lock and was filled with the modified synthe-stuff, and so should serve his purposes. Potestatem had resolved to leave the suit pieces on once he had finished them, in order to get used to wearing them - because once he was out of the womb he would need to wear them full-time, for the computers inside the womb informed him that without them, he would die an excruciatingly painful death in three to four hours.

The power core of an Arkeyan Ultron, somewhat stripped down, was adapted into a back casing and that was connected to two wing-joint encasers that Potestatem built, before he finally got to work on his new wings.

Two more technomagical bladegear launchers were designed first, and attached to the wing casing, as well as some extra laser crystals just on the edge of that. Then Potestatem attached some hover-jets to the bottom of those, and a set of thrusters to the back of all that. Finally, remembering the way Whirlwind and Polarus' wings only folded partway, he designed some rather similar hinges and attached some aerodynamic Arkeyan Assassin Swords to the hinges. Those things could cut through anything, and would never dull.

Finally, Potestatem linked all of the technology together with artificial nerves, and connected it all to the chips in his head. All the tests worked perfectly.

Now it was time for the big moment. The moment when he, the new Potestatem, would return to the world.

Engaging his new wings' aquatic mode, he propelled himself back along the extended Arkeyan arm. And erupted from the end into the sky, his jet thrusters engaging and propelling him up like a rocket. He landed in Arkor's communications hub, and saw six dragonoids that he instantly recognised. Whirlwind, Polarus, Cogshine, Burn, Insidae and Shadeblazer.

Cogshine was holding Polarus by the throat, Burn was holding Whirlwind, Insidae was hanging back, looking conflicted, and Shadeblazer was standing in front of them all, a grim smile on her face.

"Three months I've waited for this day, punk," As before, she spat the last word out like an insult.

So that's how long it's been, Potestatem mused.

"I've been wondering when you'd return, Potestatem. And now, I'm going to tear you to pieces all over again,"

The cyber dragon frowned behind his mask, and, with a thought, activated his voice modifier. "You killed Potestatem three months ago, when you tore off his wings, horns, and teeth," he boomed.

Clearly punctuating each word, he proclaimed: "I. Am. Drobot,"

**Okay, I'm not going to lie. I loved writing this. It was so much more enjoyable than the turmoil I went through writing the sixth chapter of this story. And we've got some awesome action being prepped for Ch. 8. But please, review!**

**Oh, and on the off chance that anybody from SKC Heyington has actually gotten this far, which I highly doubt as the vast majority of you guys probably haven't read ten thousand words of an actual book in your lifetime, let alone 'A Technical Tail', (yeah, if you live in Melbourne, Australia, consider that when you pick your school) you are to be commended on doing so, and warned that as far as you lot go, the fanfic net is my domain.**

**If that made no sense to you, don't worry about it, it was kind of aimed at a certain group of people, and yes, I am great at being melodramatic. Peace!**


	8. A Strange Turn of Events

Chapter 8: A Strange Turn of Events

"Cyborg going down," Shadeblazer shouted. "Insidae! Burn! Cogshine! Attack!" Tossing Whirlwind and Polarus aside, the four dragons charged. Or at least Insidae made a show of charging, but making sure she didn't actually do any of the fighting.

"All functioning Arkeyan Weapons Units! Attack any organism that attempts to incapacitate and/or destroy this unit!" Drobot ordered over his comlink.

"I'm gonna 'incapacitate and/or destroy' you, cyber-punk!" Shadeblazer yelled.

"That's the point, you maniacal moron!" Drobot retaliated, as a whole host of Arkeyan Ground Units burst out of the rubble. They were greatly varied, from gold-and-green Arkeyan Rip-Rotors to red Arkeyan Ultrons to tarnished bronze Arkeyan Jousters. An Arkeyan Shield Juggernaut broke out of a pile of junk and an Arkeyan Copter even appeared from the rubble.

The three dragonoids drew back in shock as an entire Arkeyan Conquertron picked itself up from the rubble, mimed two punches and held itself in a battle ready stance. Drobot engaged the hover thrusters on his new, mechanical wings and flew into the cockpit of the Conquertron. With a few flicks of buttons, the robot picked up the semi-conscious forms of Whirlwind and Polarus and gently deposited them inside the head of the robot.

"Well, Shadeblazer and co.? Are you going to commit yourselves to a battle you know will end in your defeat, and possibly death?" Drobot boomed through the robot's speakers. He was willing to bet Insidae and Burn would refuse, and possibly Cogshine too, and Shadeblazer was insane, but not insane enough to take on an army of Arkeyans by herself.

But Shadeblazer had other plans. "Cogshine? Activate the new programming,"

As one, every single robot about faced and attacked the robot. Even the Conquertron itself opened up it's head and started punching itself in the head. "Any Arkeyan Units not being affected by the virus, please assist this unit!" Drobot instructed into his comlink. And he wasn't disappointed. The Arkeyan Copter, which had been hovering patiently, turned, swooped in, picked up the three dragonoids and flew away. In less than two minutes.

"Okay. What just happened?" Polarus had to ask as he regained full consciousness. "Me and the Arkeyan Units I reactivated over the last three years were initiating scare tactics on Shadeblazer and her team, when all technical units except the copter were unexpectedly turned against me. I had to get you two and escape using the copter," Drobot explained.

"So where are we going now?" Polarus had to ask.

"To find out who, or what, hacked into Arkor on the day of the race, three months ago. You should understand that, during that time, because of my Arkeyan network which, it is apparent that Cogshine has completely eradicated, I wasn't dead to the world. I just could not exist in it. And during that time, my signal tracer pinpointed the location of the hacker. That's where we're going,"

And it was a long flight through Skylands the three friends took that day. Whirlwind woke briefly, during which Drobot told her about everything that had happened, then she went right back to sleep. Polarus was out cold too.

It was a bonus of Drobot's biomechanical interface that denied him the need for sleep. He couldn't go without sleep indefinitely, but in all the time he had been in the techno-womb, he hadn't slept a wink. His calculations told him that he should be able to go for up to a month without sleep, but the synthe-substance had been keeping him awake. Even so, he would need some sleep sooner or later.

The GPS beeped, telling him that they had arrived at the destination. Drobot couldn't help but be impressed.

It was a massive castle, with a large, kilometer-square-size keep and two wings branching off to either side. A single massive turret adorned the front of the building, and, oddly enough, there was what seemed to be a giant, old-fashioned Portal of Power mounted vertically atop the tower. Two smaller towers protruded from the wings, and the tower on the left seemed to constantly be emitting various sounds of machinery. Just behind the large central turret was a large checkerboard-like stone plateau, surrounded by grandstands. The overall construction was quite awe-inspiring.

Drobot landed the Arkeyan Copter on a nearby Skyland and activated 'Camp Mode'. It was his own design. The three propellers opened up into full circular shelters, the front and roof of the cockpit slid forwards, and red tarp unrolled from the roof and magnetised itself to the edges of the front of the cockpit and the previous walls of the cockpit on one side, the other side was equipped with an Earth invention Drobot had learnt about and built called a 'zipper', and the floor of the cockpit slid forwards, magnetising itself to the front of the cockpit and the left tarp-wall, which was the magnetic one, and revealing four padded nest-like depressions. Finally the back propeller detached and moved itself to the tarpaulin door, and a sheet of metal slid out of the missile launcher, forming a porch.

Drobot stepped outside and admired his work. He was a genius.

Returning inside the copter, he noticed it was getting late in the day. He carefully moved Whirlwind and Polarus into two of the padded, nest-like depressions, before settling down in one himself. Drobot couldn't help but chuckle as Whirlwind snored.

The next day, Whirlwind, because she'd slept for almost eighteen hours yesterday, was the first to get up, and didn't realise that the other two might want some more sleep. She yelled in Polarus' ear; "Wake up, bro! Nice and early!" Polarus semi-consciously moaned "Ugh, five more hours, Whirlybird!"

A dark look came over Whirlwind's muzzle and she screamed "DON'T CALL ME WHIRLYBIRD!" as she charged up a singularly powerful Rainbow Singularity and launched it from her horn straight at her brother. As another unicorn-dragon-hybrid, the light didn't hurt a bit, but it was very effective at waking him up - and temporarily blinding Polarus.

Drobot gave a polite cough to show that he was awake.

"Oh, uh, good morning, Potestatem," Whirlwind told him. "How much of that did you hear?"

Drobot smiled behind his mask. "It is Drobot at this point in time. And allow me to put it this way: anything that I did not hear I will when I replay the surveillance tapes in my helmet from the camera over there," And he waved a paw in the general direction of the roof, where a camera could be seen.

Drobot pushed a button and the padded area that the pilot usually sat on in the copter raised itself up and turned over, forming a dining table. "Does anybody require sustenance?"

"If that means it's time for breakfast, I do!" Polarus exclaimed, before promptly bumping into the wall, still blind from Whirlwind's Rainbow Singularity. Drobot carefully guided him over to the table before opening the storage locker at the back of the copter and pulling out a couple of frozen sheep.

Most dragons and dragon hybrids were omnivorous by evolution, carnivorous by choice. Fact of the matter was, dragons and dragon hybrids affined with any element except Undead could live off herbs and plants, Undead being the elemental opposite of Life, but only Life dragons could survive on nought but plants indefinitely, and dragons and dragon hybrids born of any of the other six elements (Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Magic and Tech) could survive on plants for a certain amount of time, depending on how related to Life their element was, but would need to consume meat sooner or later, or risk being permanently weakened. In some extreme cases, dragons had consumed so much plants and herbs that they suffered an elemental shift to Life, which was good because it was one of only two ways that Life dragons could be created. The other being dragon-plant hybrids like Camo and Insidae being born. But such consumption levels was risky in itself, because there are more plants that are poisonous to dragons than ones that are not. Thus, dragons naturally chose to eat meat.

And they weren't picky about how they ate it. Many mature dragons are quite happy to snatch their chosen meal up from it's field and eat it whole in mid-air, regurgitating the bones and other inedible bodily parts later, without bothering to prepare it in any way, or even to kill it first. Though those with more of a respect for life would usually kill the sheep before eating it. Life dragons were the only type who abstained from this practice. Which, of course, meant Undead dragons did it all the more.

These particular sheep were dead, and seemed to have been frozen a good while. But after Drobot heated them up with a concentrated blast from his lasers, it tasted good enough for a nice breakfast for the three dragons. Despite their more equestrian heritage than most dragonoids, Whirlwind and Polarus seemed happy enough to eat the sheep, and the three squabbled like little kids over the best pieces of the meat. More than one tug-of-war ensued. None of them involved forepaws for anything other than friction. Dragons in general really didn't do etiquette. Period.

After the last scraps of meat had been consumed, and the less tasty parts of the sheep, like the teeth, eyes, bones, and wool, had been thrown over the side of the island, the three dragonoids came together to plan. But no one really wanted to think after a meal like that, so they unanimously agreed to just walk in the front door and ask around.

So that was what they did.

Leaving the copter on the island, out of camp mode and locked, the trio flew down to the castle, and Drobot, not seeing a doorbell, knocked, somewhat tentatively. Standing here, in front of these doors, there was suddenly something malevolent about the whole arrangement. This opinion was reinforced by the female Runt who opened the door. She was tall, almost lanky, wore a black dress with long, drooping sleeves and leather shoulderpads that completely covered her legs, had a hairnet with pink beads that held her hair in a form that looked somewhat like curving, menacing horns, and her skin was pale, but vaguely tinted pink. "Yes, how can I help you?"

Drobot stepped forwards. "Um, we came here tracking some interference with some of my technology three months ago. Somebody hacked into my core database at the Misty Mountains, and I want to find out who," At this, the Runt woman chuckled.

"That would be my son, Kaos. He's quite young, but he's always messing around with some type of technology or other. Why don't you and your friends come in, if you came from the Misty Mountains you must have had a very long flight. I'm Linagarnix by the way. Do any of you have any plans later? Because I was just about to invite some . . . . old family friends over for tea this evening and I would be delighted if you could stay and join us," Linagarnix explained in her silky, almost, but not quite menacing and even vaguely theatrical tone.

"Ooh, tea! I say we go for it!" Polarus whispered in Drobot's ear. In a kid-Polarus whisper, which was basically a bit louder than normal voices.

"She seems nice enough. I say we stick around, for now at least," Whirlwind whispered in his other ear. Actually whispered.

Drobot did a dragon-shrug. "Sure, we can stay for a few hours,"

Linagarnix smiled at this. "Excellent. Kaos's rooms are down that corridor," she indicated a corridor leading to the left of the castle from the foyer, "the kitchens are just down the stairs next to the door to the dining room, and that corridor is over there," she waved a hand in the general direction of the far right corner of the room, where a decent-sized door was clearly seen, "and if you see any live wooden mannequins around the place, they're the staff. They're called Wilikin and they were a by-product of one of Kaos' experiments gone wrong. I worry about him sometimes. He's so lonely, other than his troll butler, and even he doesn't really like him. But Glumshanks is so loyal, no matter what Kaos does to him. By accident or on purpose. My quarters are just above the dining room if you need me. I will see you at dinner. Ta-ta, now!" And the Runt regally swept away.

"She seems nice. A bit aloof, but nice," Polarus mused.

**Well, this is interesting. Thanks for the reviews, everyone but con002. As for you, QUIT SPREADING MY NAME ALL OVER THE INTERNET, YOU FLAMING IDIOT! AND NEVER REVIEW MY WORK AGAIN!**

**It's been like this all night, people. I'm sorry about losing all the reviews for this thing, but, thanks to con002, I had to completely reboot and reset this fiction. Which means the reviews and the view count are down to nothing, so if you had a review on here before, and you want it back up here, you're going to have to post it again. Sorry!**

**I guess that's all I can really say about this offense, which I am really ticked off about. Peace!**


	9. The Tea Party of Doom!

Ch. 9: The Tea Party of Doom!

Drobot was about to knock on the door, Whirlwind standing behind him. Polarus had gone in search of the kitchens. "And he says I'm the one who needs to go on a diet," Whirlwind had grumbled.

Just before Drobot knocked, a tall, somewhat regal Runt approached down the corridor. He bore a resemblance to Linagarnix, but he was male, not quite as tall, and his hair was brown and cropped short. And rather than black, he was dressed in red and gold, and a circlet adorned with a single sapphire was atop his head.

"Good day, my good fellows," he bowed, even more regally. His voice was soft and reassuring. He would make the perfect king, Whirlwind thought. If only he were a dragon, she mentally added. Then, at the same moment, all three noticed that his circlet had fallen off during the bow. And the image of regality was lost as he dropped to all fours to pick it up again.

"And whom, may I ask, art thou?" The kingly Runt asked the two dragonoids.

Drobot and Whirlwind introduced themselves. "And you are?"

"Prince Juxto Goldengrip the Ninth, first in line for the throne of Ashlar. Ashlar is actually a whole other dimension outside of Skylands, but when my parents divorced, my mother moved here to Skylands. And while me and two of my brothers, Corin and Edgar, chose to remain in Ashlar with our father, the Good King Zenhold Goldengrip, my second-youngest brother, Kaos, chose to come here and live with mother. He always was the odd one in the family. And who can blame him, looking like that?" Juxto chortled at the last sentence.

"Looking like what?" Drobot asked.

Footsteps echoed from behind the locked door. "You're about to find out," Juxto told the two dragonoids.

The great door opened - and the shortest being Drobot had ever seen walked through the door. It was a short, bald Runt with some peculiar black marks all over his face. He was wearing a little labcoat that, for some reason, was black, not white. It went straight down to his feet. Drobot really hoped he was wearing something else underneath it.

"Yes, what is it, Juxto?" His voice had a tedious tone to it, as if he were rather bored with the conversation already and didn't care who knew it. "Oh, and I see we have guests. Goodbye," And with that comment, he closed the door.

Reinforced steel bars slid down from the arch above the door, one of which had a 'Do Not Disturb' sign posted on it, the type you would find in any decent hospitable hotel. As if that didn't get the message across, a malevolent, booming voice echoed 'DO. NOT. DISTURB,"

Drobot and Whirlwind gaped, but Juxto was shaking his head, a palm clasped to his forehead. When he notice the dragonoids' curious stares, he elaborated. "He had one of these in his quarters in Ashlar too. As a matter of fact, it's probably the same one," Juxto explained.

Drobot and Whirlwind had reunited with Polarus, after reminding him that he shouldn't eat too much or he would spoil his appetite for 'tea', and the trio spent a rather enjoyable afternoon with Juxto, exchanging information and opinions on matters Skylandian and Ashlarene. Drobot was intrigued by the fact that while Skylands contained all eight elements, Ashlar only contained seven, with a vacuum in the place of Undead. Apparently, when someone died in Ashlar, that was it. No spells to bring them back, no being sought out in the Underworld by the living for information crucial to something or other. Drobot found the idea somewhat disconcerting, but a good one at the same time. In Ashlar, you could die in peace. Drobot liked the sound of that.

Eventually, it was teatime, and the four were called down to the dining room, where three Runt-designed places were set at the head of the table and opposite each other just near it, presumably for Linagarnix, Juxto and Kaos, but there were also eight places equipped for dragonoids, four on each side, and an empty chair opposite Linagarnix at the end of the table closest to the door. Apparently the guests Linagarnix was expecting were also dragons. Drobot filed the information into his suit's memory banks as Linagarnix took her place at the head of the table. Juxto sat to her left, Kaos to her right. Drobot took his place next to Juxto, Whirlwind sat beside him, and Polarus chose a seat on the far side of his sister from Drobot.

Suddenly, a young, perhaps five years old, navy-blue-and-silver dragon appeared at the door. He had big, wide, trusting eyes and really cute little horns. It was impossible not to think he was cute. He took his place next to Polarus. "Aww, who's this little guy?" Whirlwind cooed, astonished by the presence of such a young dragon without it's mother. "I'm Darkus," the young dragon chirped with the happy innocence only one as young as him could muster.

"Yes. I found him abandoned on a Skyland not far from here, with no sign of his parents. Naturally, I took him in and I'm raising him as if he's my own," Linagarnix explained to her three guests. Whirlwind nodded approvingly, Drobot accepted that it was the logical thing to do, but Polarus just looked confused.

"Our guests should be arriving at any moment," Linagarnix decreed haughtily. As if on cue, the door opened and a very familiar dragon appeared at the door. Simultaneously, Drobot, Polarus, Whirlwind and Shadeblazer, for it was her, gasped. "You!"

Linagarnix frowned, as if she was suddenly aware of a bad stench in the room. "You already know each other?"

"That incompetent reptilian organism is the reason that I must permanently be subject to the discomfort of this personally-designed mechanical masterpiece," Drobot complained, his face creasing in anger behind his mask.

"That ridiculous robotic techno-punk beat me in a race through my junkyard!" Shadeblazer retaliated hot-headedly. "I do not believe the junkyard was classified as being obtained and/or in possession of by you. And I have already expressed severe dislike of being referred to by the term 'techno-punk," Drobot retaliated. The others in the room, which now included Cogshine, Insidae and Burn, who had snuck in while Shadeblazer was ranting, were watching in mounting apprehension.

Linagarnix didn't like apprehension. "Children, children, this is a civilised occasion! I do not know what your differences are, or why they have occurred, but I would request that you work your way through them at an occasion other than my tea! Now, will all guests please sit down, act civilised, and at least try to get along, please,"

Shadeblazer grudgingly sat down opposite Drobot, next to Kaos. Burn sat down next to her, Cogshine next to him, his feathers twitching nervously, and Insidae finally took a seat opposite Darkus, next to the dragon-sphinx hybrid.

Half a dozen Wilikin entered, with the first course, a freshly prepared steak for each member of the party with the best tea from the Tree of Life, which Insidae politely refused on the grounds that she may have known the plants the tea was made from, and even a clover of some fern nobody recognised except, again, Insidae, and nobody really cared either, because it smelled great.

Of course, Drobot and Shadeblazer ruined the tranquility of the meal by trying to see who could eat the steak and drink the tea fastest, then, when the second course came, a fine soup made from all kinds of juice, berries and what Whirlwind was a little worried that was the blood of the animal the steak had come from, they got it all over the place in their stubborn, reckless attempt at competition. All of which Linagarnix noted and smiled.

Finally, and with multiple calls for the Wilikin servants for clean-up duty, which incidentally resulted in the hilarious appearance of one of the blond, square-jawed Wilikin wearing a stereotypical maid's dress and carrying a mop, the meal was concluded. "That was, interesting. Drobot, Whirlwind, Polarus, can I see you in my private quarters please?"

So the three dragonoids were standing at the landing just outside Linagarnix's suite, with mounting trepidation. The call was given for them to come in.

Drobot was about to begin his apologies for the meal, but Linagarnix cut him off as soon as he started. "Don't worry, about it, it happens all the time around Shadeblazer. She makes more enemies than friends. No, the reason that I called you all up here is very different,"

And, for the first time, they could see a tear glistening in her eye. "It's Darkus. He has a dreadful condition that could prove fatal if not treated properly. I have devised a machine to restore him to his health, but I require a power source for my device. I have located a crystal of amazing power hidden in the Outlands, but it is very heavily guarded and I cannot retrieve it. But Kaos informs me that he can see that suit of yours is very capable of combat, and I have heard that unicorn-dragon hybrids such as yourselves are quite powerful. I was hoping to request that the three of you go to the mountain in the Outlands and retrieve the crystal for me so that I can save poor, sweet, Darkus," And now the tears were flowing freely.

All three dragons were moved by this performance of motherly love. "Of course we'll help you and Darkus. Where is this crystal and how long do we have?" Whirlwind vowed. Fumbling, Linagarnix managed to pull a scroll from a drawer in her desk. "Here. It contains everything you need. Now please, go and help me save my son!"

"We'll leave immediately," Drobot vowed. And they did, promptly leaving the room, and, as Linagarnix could tell through her magic, the castle. It was a very moving performance, and, as it was, nought but a performance, Linagarnix thought to herself, chuckling, the tears gone as if they had never existed in the first place. Which they hadn't. The power of the illusion, never to be underestimated. For there was no life-threatening condition, only a plan for Linagarnix to rule Skylands, and eventually, the Universe. But it always paid to make sure.

Seizing a microphone, Linagarnix instructed the Wilikin that was always on-call should she ever need something, "Find Shadeblazer. Order her to get up here. Now,"

**Now this is getting interesting. I did want to put what happened to Cogshine in this one, but it didn't happen. Keep reviewing, everyone! Oh, and due to my having to reboot the story, if you favourited it before it was rebooted, you're unfortunately going to have to favourite it again. Same with followed. Peace!**


	10. Rebirth (Part 1)

Ch: 10: Rebirth (Part 1)

Cogshine trudged through the gardens dejectedly. Young Darkus, who was learning to fly and had gotten himself trapped on the roof, spotted him and called out for help. "Hey! Silver feathers! Can you help me?"

Cogshine, roused from his stupor by an annoying whine in his sensitive, feline ears, looked around for the source of the whine and spotted Darkus on the roof, cute little silver wings waving around to gather attention. "Help!"

Cogshine, annoyed at being distracted from his thoughts by that little kid, conveniently forgetting that he was still a kid himself, shook his head in annoyance, extended his wings to their full eighteen feet and took off towards Darkus.

Grabbing the younger dragonoid by the loose little flap of skin at the base of every dragon's neck, the hybrid carried the youngster down to the ground.

Darkus shook himself like a dog for no apparent reason. "Thanks. What's got you down?"

Normally, Cogshine would have yelled at him to back off and stalked away, but he wasn't feeling himself that day. So he told him.

"It's just, I feel like I'm not strong enough. Shadeblazer has power over both Fire and Undead, Insidae can create and control all types of plants, even Burn can forge fire and shape it however he wants. The only thing I can do is build stuff. How useful is that in battle?"

"Good point. Wanna hug it out?" Darkus asked, a childish, excited smile coming over his face as he raised his forelegs and wings and balanced there for a few seconds before collapsing on his face.

Cogshine couldn't help but chuckle. "No. I just wish there was something that could give me new abilities, make me stronger, you know?"

Darkus' childish smile turned into a sinister one. "I think I might know something,"

Cogshine instantly turned back to him. "What? Tell me!"

"For a cookie," Darkus told him, smirking up at him.

"A-a cookie? What?" Cogshine stuttered in shock.

"I'll show you where the power thingy is if you give me a cookie," Darkus explained, in the tone of someone explaining to someone his age that one plus one made two, or for Darkus, that an enemy can't kick you if you bite through his leg. Which had been the fate of a rather unfortunate Wilikin butler some months earlier.

"Fine, I'll get you a cookie after you show me the power enhancer thing," Cogshine suggested. Darkus shook his cute little head. "Nope. Cookie first, then power thingy,"

Cogshine shook his silver-furred head in exasperation. "Fine, I'll go to the kitchen and get you a cookie, then you show me the power enhancer,"

"Make sure it's a sheep-fat-coated sugar-free unicorn horn! Mum makes them specially for me," Darkus added enthusiastically as the two dragonoids moved towards the kitchen.

Shadeblazer muttered something inarticulate, but no doubt offensive and directed at Cogshine as she, Insidae and Burn reclined in an airship Linagarnix had instructed a Wilikin to pilot to take them to the site in the Outlands of the power crystal thing. Cogshine had been supposed to accompany them, but he was nowhere to be seen. So it was just the three of them.

"Well, he doesn't know what he's missing. These Wilikin are giving us spa sessions!" Shadeblazer muttered to herself, drawing contentment from that fact.

According to the map, they were a third of the way there. Of course, Linagarnix hadn't told Shadeblazer that Drobot, Whirlwind and Polarus were going after it too, so they figured it would be easy. They had no idea that Arkeyan Copters were faster than airships, or that the other three had a head start on them.

Or that the other three in question were currently under attack by ghost pirates.

"Whoa!" Polarus gasped as a cannonball soared right over his head. Him and Whirlwind were standing on top of the copter, which was in Jet Mode so they weren't worried about getting injured by the rotors, and using their limited powers over storm clouds to defend from the onslaught of ghost pirates. Drobot was inside the cockpit, trying to escape and using the copter's in-built lasers and rockets to help defend them.

Whirlwind and Polarus had a massive spherical shell of electric storm-clouds around the copter, which was thin enough for Drobot to see through relatively well and deflected most of the projectiles, but it didn't do anything to repel boarders. That, along with maintaining the storm-shield, was Whirlwind and Polarus' job.

Polarus twisted to the side as a flaming arrow narrowly grazed his left wing, leaving a slightly smouldering burn on his primary feathers. Whirlwind spotted this and launched a short barrage of rainbow light at him, as another arrow skidded between his forelegs and narrowly missed his tail.

In retaliation, Polarus launched a supercharged singularity of blinding light from his own solitary, gold-and-mahogany horn straight at the ghostly Drow Archer that had been shooting him. It knocked him backwards, straight off the turbine on which he had been perched.

Of course, he was immediately replaced by a massive, gold-plated Goliath Drow.

Whirlwind cursed. "Dragon feathers!"

It was a curious thing that the body of the Goliath Drow was ethereal, but his gold-plated steel weaponry was solid. Polarus disregarded the thought as he extended his wings to their full fourteen feet and leapt onto the back of the Goliath Drow. Strangely, the claws on his hind legs and his right foreleg found purchase on the metaphysical elf's waist and Polarus took advantage of that to use his left foreleg to prise one of the ghost's wrist armaments away from it's hand.

It fell into the abyss below, as the Goliath finally realised what was happening and charged. Which was completely ineffective as the dragon hybrid was on his back.

Goliaths were generally known for their ability to smash stuff, not their intelligence. Indeed, a couple of Spell Punks had once done a test to see if a Goliath or a Chompy was smarter. The result had determined that the average Chompy had ten IQ points - and the average Goliath had fifteen.

And without his left wrist-plate, his force-field failed to kick in, so he was completely vulnerable to the Rainbow Singularity that Whirlwind launched straight into his path seconds after Polarus abandoned his tenuous perch. Blinded, the monster collapsed over the blue-tinted glass that made up a large part of the copter's cockpit and slid down it, trailing drool down the reinforced clear plastic.

Drobot's mechanical voice came over the intercom. "Please undertake consideration of the preservation of the pristinity of the technological unit we are currently travelling upon. I possess great pride in it,"

"That Drow was about to crush us!" Whirlwind pointed out testily.

"And for your information, there are multiple organisms that give the appearance of being ex-biotic factors incoming. It is continuum-points such as this singularity that this unit would suggest the limitations of science apply to the Undead element as an all-inclusive rule. It would allow for increased simplicity levels at time-periods during the course of operations such as this one,"

"Cut the techno-gibberish and get back to shooting those ghost ships before Stormee gets out!" Whirlwind shouted, getting really annoyed with the Tech dragon.

Polarus looked over at the word 'Stormee'. "Yeah, sis, keep Stormee in. If she takes control now, odds are she'll kill you both,"

To put it simply, Stormee was to Whirlwind what Dark Spyro was to Spyro. She was an alternate personality within Whirlwind's mind that was released when Whirlwind got really angry. Stormee was actually quite similar to Whirlwind, but she had a centimetre-short temper and would fly into a destructive rage at the slightest provocation. And that meant the SLIGHTEST provocation. Stormee's violent anger could be triggered by so little as a mildly irritating bird call, or someone sticking their tongue out at her, or even so little as someone accidentally brushing up against her wing's secondary feathers. The fact that Whirlwind was usually already quite angry when Stormee took over usually meant that it would be prudent to put either a kilometre or a good twenty-cm-thick wall of pure rock or steel between you and the dragon in question when she took control.

On such limited ground as the top of the Arkeyan Copter, Stormee would probably accidentally - or maybe even on purpose, in order to finish destroying an enemy that she had already thrown off the roof - throw herself off the roof, and as Stormee had been known to become so anger-consumed that she had forgotten to fly, that would be lethal.

Then another Goliath, which had somehow snuck up behind her, rammed her off the copter. Whirlwind, shocked, spread her wings and steadied herself, as she got really angry.

The dragonoid flew at the Goliath in a frenzy of claws, horns, clouds and light. "Go Whirlwind!" Polarus cheered, then remembered the last time he had seen his sister fight like that. "Wait. That's not Whirlwind . . . . Aww, dragon feathers!"

Stormee was loose.

Darkus took a bite out of a conical-shaped cookie as he slammed the vat lid down on Cogshine, absurdly whistling the tune to 'I've been working on the railroad'. The hybrid in the tank filled with growth serum had a chunk of Petrified Darkness in each of his ivory-taloned paws. Darkus had instructed him not to let go of them, no matter what.

A thought crossed Cogshine's mind. Darkus was still only three years old . . . . and unlike Cogshine, he was no technical genius. Meaning Cogshine had just put his life in the hands of a toddler! "What was I thinking when I did this?!" Cogshine thought, panicking, knocking on the capsule lid. Darkus took this as a sign to hurry up, so he began flicking levers and adjusting dials with increased speed.

And with speed comes mistakes.

Darkus slammed his petite little paw down on the big red button that started the growth procedure.

Cogshine screamed in agony.

**Ya gotta love a couple of good cliffhangers, right? I know self-promoting stinks, but I gotta give myself props for what I did with what's just a nickname to everyone else. And Cogshine, yes, you are an idiot.**

**"I heard that! You'd better watch your back, because I'm coming!"**

**Great, now I'm going to have to get Tails to lend me one or two, or maybe all of the Maxus Chaos pieces to protect myself. What are the Maxus Chaos pieces? You'll find out in Dragon Chronicles. Eventually. Mu-hu-wa-ha-ha-hack-hack-cough!**

**Blasted cough! That is why I don't like going to school. I always catch whatever bug is going around. Good thing the holidays start for me in a week or so.**

**Oh, and I think I forgot to mention this before. Because of the reboot, (I'm still not talking to you, Connie boy) if you followed/favourited Technical Tail before October 30, 2013, you're going to have to do that again.**

**"I'm still coming here!"**

**And I've got a flashlight.**

**"Aaargh! But your love-heart projecting flashlight will only hold me back so long!"**

**Long enough for me to get one of the Maxus Chaos pieces and their power is infinite. Why does that thing project a love-heart, anyway? It doesn't look at all girly at first glance. It's green.**

**No offence, I know how many people on here are girls. Peace!**


	11. Coming After This Moment (Song Chapter)

Ch. 11: Coming After This Moment (Song Chapter)

Stormee lowered her head and charged straight into the ghost. Normally this would have resulted in the tapering horn embedding itself in the ghost's chest, puncturing the drow's heart and instantly killing him.

Today, there was absolutely no unseen, unexpected occurrence to stop what normally happened in a situation like this, so that was exactly what happened.

Stormee thrust her head forward and jettisoned the lifeless carcass of the spectral Drow from the top of the Copter. Having pushed against it's chest with her forepaws, Stormee's golden-and-maroon horn emerged from the Drow's heart, glistening with blood, which ran down the incline of her horn and stained the cerulean-blue fur on her head and face a dark purplish-red.

"Wait, if they're ghosts, why do they have blood?" Polarus pointed out.

"DON'T ASK ANNOYING QUESTIONS, YOU PATHETIC POLAR PIPSQUEAK!" Stormee shouted at her brother, flying off the handle, unsheathing her claws and attacking him.

The blue-and-white dragon tore a long scratch down the side of Polarus' back, just below his left wing, used her small, razor-sharp teeth to tear a big chunk of snow-white feathers from the same left wing, pirouetted on her hind legs and swept his feet out from underneath him, before finally raising herself again, on her forelegs this time, and kicking him onto the protruding edges of the back rotor like she was a horse, where multiple cuts were sliced in his hind legs.

The two unicorn-dragon hybrid siblings had been so busy with the matter of Stormee beating up Polarus that Drobot was the only one who noticed that they had finally left behind the fleet of ghost pirates. Probably because, according to his helmet's built-in GPS device, the Copter and it's pilot and passengers had just crossed the border into the Outlands. Then he noticed the situation on top of the copter with Stormee and Polarus.

Drobot popped open the small hatch in the Copter's cockpit that led to the roof, and climbed out, finding himself halfway between the two hybrids. The cyber dragon launched a bladegear with a cord attached to it from his tail and over to Polarus, who weakly grabbed at it. Drobot pulled on the cord with the claw on one of his hind legs, and slowly pulled Polarus over to him, all the while keeping his eyes on Stormee.

Despite all of the blood he had lost, Polarus was conscious enough to weakly get down the ladder and pull himself onto one of the cushioned seats on the Copter's rim, where he finally surrendered to the irresistible pull of unconsciousness.

"Analysing," Drobot muttered to himself as his helmet scanned the blue-feathered hybrid. Polarus and Whirlwind had told him all about Stormee previously, so he knew that Stormee taking control was probably what had happened to Whirlwind. His neural scan of Whirlwind's brainwaves proved his theory that Stormee was in charge.

And how to reinstate Whirlwind's control.

His fiddling with Arkeyan technology had allowed him a certain level of access to the Earth Internet, and he had downloaded a couple of songs to his database. And Arkor's calculations told him that one of those songs, played at full possible vocal synthesiser audial projection levels, should shock Stormee into allowing Whirlwind to take control again. Drobot skipped the first couple of lyrics, and at his command, his suit's speakers launched full into the first chorus of 'Feel This Moment', by a person who for some reason called himself a pitbull.

Drobot was pretty sure that that was a type of Earth dog. Why anyone would call themselves a dog - unless they actually were a dog, which was unlikely because Drobot believed that there were no sentient dogs on the world known as Earth - was beyond the cyber dragon's processors, but he instructed them to worry about that at another time. With a careful flick of his tail, he hit the virtual 'play' button.

"One day when the light is going, I'll be in my castle golden,  
But until the gates are open, I just wanna feel this moment,"

"What's that supposed to do? Sweeten me into submission?" Stormee jeered.

Then the song burst into a short chorus of 'Whooaa-ae-ai-o! I just wanna feel this moment!" and Stormee found that sudden change a bit annoying. So she extended all twelve of her claws and threw herself at Drobot.

"Whooaa-e-oh! I just wanna feel this - MO-MENT!"

Drobot kick-started his suit's hover thrusters and gracefully rose into the air as the song dissolved into a series of guitar chords. As Stormee soared beneath him, he obnoxiously replied "Precisely,"

Drobot continued weaving and dodging around Stormee as in the song, some old guy shouted something about something being worldwide, and some other incomprehensible junk before the women returned and shouted "I just wanna feel this -" just as Drobot flipped upside-down in midair to dodge as Stormee lunged for him, then, perhaps appropriately, the second the unknown female in the song shouted "MOMENT!" a cannonball came out of nowhere and smashed into Stormee's throat.

"Huh? What happened?" Whirlwind, for the impact of the cannonball had returned her to her senses asked, with bleary eyes. "I would recommend physically repositioning your processing unit to the geospatial location designated 'the inside of the Copter'. These units are under physical attack," Drobot explained, diving through the hatch that led back to the cockpit. Whirlwind had no idea what he had just said but after a second cannonball whistled past her long, blue, rabbit-like ears she got the message and followed Drobot through the hatch, being careful not to damage her oversized feathery wings in the small space.

"What happened? When Stormee gets out I can never remember a thing . . . ." Whirlwind trailed off as she saw Polarus' injured, unconscious form. "Please tell me I didn't do that," she finished. Her suspicions were confirmed when she noticed the patches of dried blood on her claws and recoiled in shock.

Drobot checked the rear-view video feed and saw a familiar black-scaled face shaking a clenched claw at him. Somehow, for some reason, Shadeblazer was chasing them. "This unit is going to require an alternative musical audio playback," Drobot smiled, before disengaging the autopilot and pushing down on the throttle.

"May-this-unit-recommend-audio-playback-save-file-0-1-4-codename-'I'm Coming After You'?" Arkor suggested.

"Recommendation accepted. Commence wireless handshake with AAC-79168392. Upon completion of primary operation, commence secondary operation engage audio playback save file 0-1-4," Drobot instructed as a different song filled the cabin. This time, it was Owl City's 'I'm Coming After You'.

"I saw your face in a criminal sketch,  
Don't be alarmed because you don't know me yet,  
I'm on the ground now, sniffing around this to-own.  
For you,"

Sure enough, Drobot had dropped the Arkeyan Copter low down, figuring correctly that they couldn't shoot what was below them.

The next verse of the song boomed into the magic-ridden Skylands air and was somewhat appropriate for the scene that presented itself to the Copter's video feeds; Whirlwind crying over Polarus' broken form and launching healing rainbow after healing rainbow at him.

"Calling all cars, there's an officer down,  
Shot through the heart on a night out of town,  
E-yeah, the evidence,  
Of your fingerprints, was fo-ound. And now,"

Drobot was proved wrong when a cannonball thunked into the reinforced windshield, and dropped off the blue-tinted titanium-laced glass. Arkor recommended "According-to-my-calculations-not-every-geospatially-physical-aspect-of-unit-AAC-79168392-has-the-exponential-potential-to-withstand-such-highly-charged-impacts-as-the-one-that-occurred-30.0-time-periods-classified-as-minutes-ago.-Recommendation:-Engage-escape-protocol-immediately,"

Drobot slammed the acceleration lever (the throttle had yet to be invented) forward and the Arkeyan Copter launched itself as if it were a cannonball that's just been fired, at the same time as the chorus to 'I'm Coming After You' burst into the surrounding atmosphere.

"You've got the right to remain right here with me,  
I'm on your tail in a hot pur-suu-uit.  
Love is a high-speed chase racing down the street.  
Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! I'm coming after you!"

More cannonballs whistled past the Copter's flanks as the chorus blared.

"Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! I'm coming after you!"

Drobot vertically swivelled the Copter's guns, and, carefully timing them so that they wouldn't bounce off the propeller blades, fired them back at Shadeblazer.

"Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! I'm coming after you!"

The missiles hit the gun deck, destroying it. But a couple of dropped weapons from the fight with the ghost pirates slid into the guns' machinery in the process, jamming them. Of course, Shadeblazer wasn't going to give up without a fight, so the chase began. Right as the second verse of 'I'm Coming After You' pounded it's way out of the speakers.

"Oh no, here we go once again.  
We both know you'll never turn yourself in. So I'm,"

Sure enough, Drobot turned and accelerated, Shadeblazer pushing her airship for all it had in pursuit. Or rather, pushing the Wilikin to push the airship for all it had in pursuit. There was no way Shadeblazer was actually going to fly the ship herself.

"Trotting till it's light out, searching for your hide, I'm  
Trotting till it's light out, searching for your hide, I'll,  
Pick up the pace as I chase you around,"

Appropriately, Shadeblazer accelerated. Drobot twisted the joystick and, moving in the way he had seen racing cars on Earth television do to prevent people from overtaking them, darted around in every possible direction at random while making sure he wouldn't crash.

"One of these days I'll end up tracking you down, but yeah.  
I got the feeling I'll be letting you loose when I do-oo,"

Burn appeared on deck, and appeared to be spitting fireballs at them. No matter that there was no way his fireballs could possibly hit them or, even if they did, that they would damage the Copter at all. The song launched back into the chorus.

"Because you, you got the right to remain right here with me,  
I'm on your tail in a hot pursu-uit,  
Love is a high-speed chase racing down the street.  
Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! I'm coming after you!"

"Dragon feathers, Drobot, for the Ancients' sake, turn off the music!" Whirlwind shouted, the ends of her wings stuffed into the bases of her long, blue, rabbit-like ears, before Polarus moaned and his head slipped off the cushions, and she rushed to steady it.

Drobot shook his head, muttered something unflattering about Whirlwind's appreciation for hilariously yet appropriately musical audial backgrounds - "I heard that! And I do appreciate music, I just don't think this is the right time!" - but didn't go against her, and thus conceded to the female hybrid's wishes and turned off Owl City's song mid-whoo.

Then Whirlwind's sharp eyesight caught sight of a beam of light similar to that of the Core of Light emitting from a point about two kilometres ahead of and half a kilometre below them. "I see the crystal's island!" she shouted.

Then one of the airship's cannons, which obviously hadn't been as destroyed as they had all thought, got a lucky hit at a tiny point on the Copter's back engine where the axle between the actual engine and the golden, red-plated rotor was exposed. The result was that the axle snapped in two, and the result of that was that the Copter was going down fast.

"According to my calculations, our primary means of remaining at a definite altitude in the geospatial area of the sky is no longer operational. All attempts to undertake an operation to re-establish a connection with AAC-79168392 have failed. Also according to my calculations, there is no visible solid area visible in the most likely fall pattern it is calculated by my servers that we will follow and the cockpit of AAC-79168392 appears to have engaged it's impenetrable safety lock. Logical conclusion drawn: in an uncertain amount of time-periods designated as 'minutes', we are going to be the first Skylandian organisms to discover the physical occupations of the geospatial region designated as 'the area below Skylands'," Drobot boomed in his emotionless robotic monotone.

"Did you say that we're going to fall to the place below Skylands?" Whirlwind asked, her blue eyes widening. "Affirmative," Drobot confirmed, nodding his cybernetic head with a sage wisdom that went far beyond his young years.

Whirlwind screamed. Polarus, who had just woken up in time to hear Whirlwind's question and Drobot's answer, became unconscious again, this time through a faint.

And with good reason. Nobody had ever tried to find out what was below Skylands. People had devoted their lives to finding out what was around Skylands, and above Skylands, but not a single person had ever wanted to know what was beneath it. The people journeying around Skylands invariably sooner or later came to a massive impassable line of storms, tornadoes and the like. So far, nobody who had ever tried to find anything above Skylands had never found anything but more of Skylands, and the latest estimates said that Skylands was taller than it was wide. Assuming the foreboding, as of yet impenetrable line of storms around Skylands was the boundary of Skylands.

But all of the entrances to the Underworld in Skylands went down, so it was generally assumed that beneath the thick white floor of cloud at the bottom of all of the known places in Skylands was nothing but the Underworld, and who wanted to go to the Underworld prematurely? So naturally, the three young dragons in the sinking helicopter assumed they were on a one-way trip to the Underworld.

Darkus tentatively returned to the growth serum chamber. It had been a full day, Cogshine should be done by now. He had noticed that he had dropped at least two of the crystals of Petrified Darkness, and had to wonder what would happen because of that.

Extending his cute little wings, he pushed himself through the air and landed on the control panel. For safety's sake, he engaged the impenetrable barrier between whatever was in the control panel area and the growth tanks. Taking a deep breath, he popped open the capsule.

Something almost unrecognisable, covered in the sludge-like growth serum and with a peculiar purple sparkle coming from his chest emerged from the tank.

Cogshine was alive, but at what cost?

**Firstly, 'A Technical Tail' is coming to a close. There's only three or four chapters left to write of it. So I've started a poll, found on my profile page, as to what I should do after this. Please vote! And don't forget to review!**

**Okay, on the off chance you're reading this and haven't read 'The Dragon Chronicles: The First Portal' yet, I fired my censurer Flynn last week, so now I'm holding auditions to find a replacement. The current list of rejections is Hoot Loop and Fryno. Next!**

**"Last time, on Total Drama Author's Notes! Technow fired his censurer Flynn last week, so now he's holding auditions to find a replacement. The current list of rejections includes Hoot Loop and Fryno, who are both out of the running to win a job at Technow's Editing Suite, currently based in Shamar, and ONE MILLION DOLLARS! Who is the next contender for the job, and will they receive it and the prize, or go home crushed and defeated? Find out now, on Total Drama Author's Notes!"**

**What the heck is going on? Wait, Flynn? What are YOU doing here? I fired you already! And this is not an episode of Total Drama! Wait. That gives me an idea, heh heh heh.**

**{Technow and Flynn appear on a Hawaiian beach, Technow is dressed as Chris McClain, Flynn is dressed as Alejandro}**

**Hi, everybody! I'm Technow McClain, here to give you the most awesome episode of Total Drama Author's Notes ever! Because with any luck, it will be the only one ever! Because Flynn did the intro, he gets the reward of competing for the prize in this perfect recreation of the final two tiebreaker challenge from Total Drama World Tour! And to cut a long and boring list of adjectives short, he will be competing against - Tessa!**

**{Tessa appears next to Flynn, dressed as Heather}**

**"Why am I wearing nothing but a disgusting bra, moss-green shorts that leave no room for my tail, and a pair of sandals?"**

**Yep, she does a great Heather. You two are going to need these.**

**{Interns give Tessa and Flynn metal poles with foam pads on either end}**

**"What do we need these for?"**

**Duelling.**

**"Good. I thought it might be dangerous," (Tessa)**

**You're not duelling here. You're duelling - there!**

**{Technow points at a wooden raft surrounded by sharks and for some reason on fire}**

**"I take that back," (Tessa)**

**{FLASH OF WHITE LIGHT - Tessa and Flynn are standing on the raft wearing nothing but grass skirts and bras made of coconuts}**

**"I'm not fighting my girlfriend! And why am I wearing a bra?" (Flynn)**

**It's traditional. And you can fight her - or you can fight the Chompies.**

**{Technow gestures to a massive cage full of Chompies Flynn could swear wasn't there five seconds ago}**

**"Okay, okay, we'll fight!" (Flynn) "Now don't worry, Tessa, I'll try not to hurt y-"**

**{Tessa whooshes her pole around and hits Flynn so hard that he flys back to the coast}**

**"There. What's my prize?"**

**Your prize is that you get to work out a way back to the coast by yourself. McClain, out! See you next time, which will hopefully never happen, on Total Drama Author's Notes!**

**{Technow disappears, leaving an unconscious Flynn on the beach and Tessa stranded on a flaming wooden raft surrounded by sharks}**

**I am great at playing Chris McClain. Peace!**


	12. The Gateway to Shamar

Ch. 12: The Gateway to Shamar

The auto-shower kicked in, dousing off all of the sludge from Cogshine's defeated-looking form. And there was a reason he looked defeated.

The vast majority of Cogshine's body was unchanged. But looking at his chest, it looked like parts of it had randomly transformed into living Petrified Darkness. The same had happened to his two front claws, which reached halfway up his forelegs, then became normal again. On his right foreleg, at least. The part of his chest that was crystalline with Petrified Darkness seemed to spread outwards from his heart, which was in the place normal for most beings, not the one that was normal for dragons, around the surrounding area somewhat randomly. It was in the shape of an almost-triangle, reaching from his hip to the base of his neck to his left foreleg joint, then extending down to meet the malevolent purple crystals that now made up his entire left foreleg. Yet he seemed able to move all of the parts that had transformed into Petrified Darkness perfectly. Then the dragon-sphinx hybrid raised his head and Duskwort could see the final effects of the transformation; the crystal had also spread up his throat, around the left side of his face and even the end of his mouth to his forehead, where no doubt it had crystallised with Petrified Darkness his brain. The fur and feathers in the regions that had been crystallized with the solidified evil had clearly been shed, leaving the crystal as bare skin, but even as he watched new skin began to cover the crystal, and new grey fur and feathers grew in a matter of instants.

It was one of the most disgusting things Darkus had ever seen, in his tender years and beyond to times not yet gone by, but in a matter of minutes Cogshine looked as if nothing had ever happened to him. But Darkus knew that the crystal was lurking just beneath the surface.

"What did you do to me? Well, it worked. I feel stronger, and better than ever. I could do anything, create anything, be any-" Cogshine cut off, as he suddenly caught a whiff of an unknown scent in the air. "What is that intoxicating fragrance? Like, like ripe cherries, combined with raw meat, and, and, and a whiff of - sunshine," Cogshine sighed in contentment, and proclaimed "I must track this fragrance of, of nasal perfection, to it's source. Goodbye, Darkus,"

And with that, he followed the smell out of the room.

It felt like they had been falling for ages. About ten minutes after the three dragonoids had started falling, they had entered the bank of clouds below Skylands. According to Drobot's suit's clock, they had been in free-fall for three hours since first entering the bank of clouds. And Drobot's calculations told him that an object of their mass, weight and/or density should be falling at fifty kilometres per minute. Which totalled to them having fallen through nine thousand kilometres of clouds. Whatever was below Skylands, it was a long way down.

Whirlwind had run out of breath to scream with after about half an hour into the clouds, and, due to lack of oxygen in her lungs, which was because of all of her screaming, she had fainted right next to her brother.

Drobot was keeping a very careful eye on all three of the broken Copter's occupants, himself included, for any sign that they may be becoming Undead. So far, nothing.

Then, at the three hours and twenty minutes mark, ten thousand kilometres precisely, and, according to Drobot's computers, one billion centimetres precisely, which may or may not be a coincidence, the jammed copter cockpit finally came out from the massive banks of clouds. Drobot rushed to the visor of the Copter, which he now realised was endlessly twisting head over heels, which could not have been seen from the banks of clouds, and in most directions there was nothing but endless purple-and-black space, pin-pricked with millions of tiny, glittering lights.

But there were three massive orbs visible at times. Far away, there was a humongous ball of yellowy-orange fire, and Drobot could not imagine what kept it there. The one they seemed to be hurtling towards was largely blue, but had some splashes of green and even the occasional bit of white. Just above that one was the smallest one of the lot, which seemed to be nothing but a really big cyan-coloured chunk of rock. Wherever they were, it wasn't Skylands. But it didn't look anything like any part of the Underworld anyone in Skylands had ever seen. Plus, Drobot's servers told him that, other than the Dreamland, there was no yellow, blue or green in the Underworld. And the Dreamland didn't have a giant chunk of rock above it, or a sun for that matter. For Drobot now realised the massive yellow-orange ball of fire was a sun.

Skylands' sun looked rather different. And as for the Dreamland, all illumination was provided by candles, lanterns or dead people making themselves bio-luminescent.

Drobot watched with avid interest as the Copter spiralled towards a section of the massive, multicoloured ball that was orangeish-beige and shaped like a quadrilateral. Narrow lines of green connected it to a couple of other green areas.

Red light appeared around parts of the cockpit and suddenly the spinning levelled out. The thermometer in Drobot's suit registered that the temperature in the Copter's cockpit was steadily getting warmer.

Drobot shook the two unicorn-dragon hybrids awake.

Whirlwind sleepily muttered "Are we dead yet? How long has it been?"

"My servers and calculations indicate that the correct response to your query is negative. This collective unit is at present in a perpetual state of incoming unto a geospatial location unregistered in my servers. According to my calculations, the biotic-factor organisms designated 'Whirlwind' and 'Polarus', the abiotic-factor organism designated 'AAC-79168392', and this semi-biotic-semi-abiotic designated term cybernetic unit designated 'Drobot' are in all likelihood finding it necessary to prepare for termination with extreme prejudice," Drobot explained.

"Why am I glad that I have no idea what that means?" Whirlwind sighed, before craning her neck, extending her wings to their full eleven feet to stretch and, once they were tucked back behind her head, rose on four unsteady blue-furred legs. Polarus followed suit.

"Look, brah, what have I missed?" the white-furred hybrid asked.

Whirlwind made a short gesture with her head, her horn pointing at the approaching planet. "That doesn't look like the Underworld," Polarus managed to say.

By now, the cabin was getting really hot. But the area around them stayed dark.

There wasn't really much to say about the last ten minutes of their descent, other than that it was really hot.

The Copter finally touched the ground on a large dune of sand. Which it bounced straight off onto another dune of sand. This continued for about three more dunes, then the Copter stopped bouncing and started sliding. From the top of a sand-dune, the three panicking dragons slid straight down into a narrow crevice with such speed that the two side propellers snapped off instantaneously and shattered to pieces when they came into contact with the sides of the canyon.

The Copter continued to bounce along the long, seemingly endless passage. But that wasn't to say there was no variety, as on two occasions the battered Arkeyan husk slid over disused temples as if they were ramps, thus crossing deep, dark pits that from the brief glances they got of them, seemed to be bottomless. On a few occasions they passed other passages cutting into the rock, and a couple of times they even bounced over or through searing hot flame-throwers.

This continued for a few minutes, before Polarus spotted what looked like a temple gateway in the canyon up ahead. He informed Drobot, who did some calculations. According to him, the cockpit of the Copter would fit through it, but the spurs that the two side propellers had been mounted on were still sticking out, and they wouldn't. Of course, there was noting they could do.

Turned out Drobot miscalculated the Copter's angle of entry. One spur, the left one, hit the side of the gate, the other passed the pillar with millimetres to spare. The result was that the Copter spun to the side, wheeling out of control and finding no more friction on the polished stone floors than it's even more polished smooth metal underbelly had on the sand of the canyon.

The bruised, battered and burnt husk of Arkeyan technology smashed into several marble pillars that had been built to hold up a heavy stone balcony. The stone balcony in question thus collapsed on top of the remnants of the Copter.

Drobot pushed the button that opened the Copter's cockpit. It opened about halfway as much as it usually did, before the weight of all of the pieces of stone on top of it caused it to jam, leaving just enough space for the three young dragons to squeeze out one at a time.

Polarus staggered out first and took a proper look at their surroundings for the first time. They appeared to be standing in a town square, as on every side there was a variety of buildings that all seemed to follow the same basic design; polished stone construction, balconies on upper levels held up by pillars much like the ones they had destroyed in their entrance. The predominant colour was a sort of orangeish-bronze, which Polarus could only assume was the natural colour of the rock the entire place was made of, but there was some red and blue paint in some places, and a grey fountain at the centre of a flower bed in the shape of a long, thin rectangle. One end of the rectangle was pointing towards the gate they had come in through, the other pointing in the opposite direction. Narrow alleyways were visible between the buildings, and seemed to be the only way out of the town square other than the large gate they had come through, but not all were at street level. Some were one storey up, and there was even one that was two storeys high, between the only two buildings in the square with three storeys, and Polarus couldn't think how anybody was supposed to get to them if they couldn't fly.

Perhaps this was a town built by dragons, or griffins, or some other flying species. Polarus recalled seeing a place like this when he and his sister had gone to a sphinx settlement. Sphinxes were the only dragon-like creatures that built houses and other such constructions for themselves in Skylands, even though all dragonoid beings had opposable thumbs, of a fashion. Perhaps things were different in this place. For this was not Skylands. A blind man could see that.

Polarus turned his white-furred head and focused his purple-and-gold eyes on Drobot and Whirlwind, the former gap helping the latter struggle out of the Copter's wreckage. "Some gentleman you are," she shot at him.

Polarus did a dragon-shrug. "If you didn't put on so much weight in the last couple of months or so, you would have been able to get out of that mess by yourself, like I did,"

Whirlwind gasped. "Are you calling me fat? You had better not be calling me fat,"

"Your complete attention is required by this unit," Drobot boomed at the two warring siblings. "However this unknown geospatial location is designated, we have arrived,"

"That's all you had to say?" Whirlwind asked incredulously. "Wherever we are, we're here? Ugh, boys," she muttered to herself, storming off towards the gate they had entered in. Where the blue-furred hybrid gasped in shock. "You should take a look at this!"

The three dragonoids all stood together, looking up at a massive sign above the gateway that read 'Welcome to Shamar'. In Arstic.

Arstic was the name of the language used by most in Skylands. It had a magical property that resulted in no matter what language someone spoke, if the other person spoke in Arstic, the first person's language sounded like Arstic to the Arstic-speaker, and the Arstic-speaker sounded like they were speaking in whatever language the first person spoke. It had been invented by Arsta, the first elf and living spirit of Tech. It was another curious effect that if a person spent enough time talking to people who spoke Arstic, they would learn to speak the language too, often without even realising.

Polarus said what they were all thinking. "So this place is called Shamar. But why is there a sign in Arstic . . . here?"

Following his nose's suddenly impeccable sense of smell, Cogshine closed his eyes, closed his ears, closed his mind to everything but the intoxicating scent that he simply had to have.

And finally, he found it. But when he opened his eyes, to put it bluntly, he realised he had gone outside into the gardens and was staring at one of Linagarnix's sheep. The source of the fragrance was inside the sheep. And he would get it out.

The next thing the dragon-sphinx hybrid knew, he was lying on his chest, covered in blood, the bloody remnants of the sheep all around him. He spotted a bit of blood on his chest and went to lick it off.

It was as he was swallowing the drops of the sweet red substance that had been glistening on his scales that he realised what had happened, what Darkus had done to him. Blood. It was that simple. There was nothing he loved more in the world, than tearing open a being and sucking every last drop of the substance out of it.

He spotted a bloody rib from the sheep and, licking it as if it were a Popsicle, realised he was hungry for more. More blood, more blood-soaked organs. The intestines were delicious, but muscles had a certain lustful tang.

And he was lying in the middle of a large flock of sheep.

Shadeblazer's airship docked at the island the great beam of light was coming from. Shadeblazer herself, Insidae and Burn stepped out. Shadeblazer led the way, Insidae and Burn following. Nobody noticed the fact that there were already two fresh sets of dragon tracks.

After what felt like several miles of winding tunnel, the three dragonoids finally came upon a great chamber, with a massive, irregular amethyst crystal in the centre of it. "That is what we are here for," Shadeblazer proclaimed. "Insidae, go pick it up and bring it over here,"

"But it's way too big for me to carry!" Insidae protested.

"Well, then you should have grown more, then, shouldn't you? It's hardly my problem if the job I want you to do is too much for you. Just like joining the Skylanders was too much for you, but it wasn't for your baby brother, huh?"

"Camo is ten. He is not a baby," Insidae hotly defended her brother. But despite this, she still gave in and moved towards the crystal.

The very second she touched it, she couldn't let go. She struggled in vain for a couple of seconds, but then her foreleg began to get sucked into the crystal. It was a truly horrifying sight to watch, the green dragon seemingly get eaten by the great amethyst. But soon, Insidae was no more. Or was she? For a second, Shadeblazer could swear she saw Insidae's prone, lifeless form inside the crystal. But then the crystal began to spin.

Round and round it went, faster and faster, until it began to rise with the force of it's spinning. It slowly became longer and thinner, shaping itself into a great purple laser - then it just shot itself out of the hole in the ceiling that the beam of light had shone through. Shadeblazer and Burn watched it go, taking whatever remained of Insidae with it.

"Well, she's gone. Let's go home and try to make sure Mum knows the mission failed because of Insidae, not us," Shadeblazer instructed Burn. The two dragons left. Only Burn paused to look back.

And it was the strangest thing, but he could swear that in the instant before he turned the corner in the passageway, he saw the silhouettes of two other dragons outlined in the chasm. Then Shadeblazer yelled at him to hurry up, and he quickly followed after her, pushing the thought of the two 'ghost' dragons out of his mind.

"Do you think he saw us?" one of them muttered to the other. "Don't be ridiculous. I didn't see us," the second replied, also whispering. "True. Here's the plan. You follow that laser, see where it ends up. Then activate the homing beacon. It's clear that, for some reason, those three - or those two, I highly doubt we'll be seeing the green one again - are after the crystal too. I'm going to make sure they give up their search," Sure enough, the first one silently stole after Shadeblazer and Burn, and the second, with a super-dragon leap, jumped through the hole that the beam of laser-like light had come from, and took to the skies in the direction that the laser had come from.

**Next!**

**"Okay, uh, hi, I'm Insidae, and I'm trying out for the part of the censurer for Dragon Chronicles. Is there some type of script I should read or something?"**

**Nope. Good news, you're the most promising candidate so far. First question: Why do you want this job?**

**"Well, uh, this chapter was the last time that I appear, apart from that one little mention in Abandoned Dragons, and I want people to remember me,"**

**What? You get half a chapter in Abandoned Dragons! And don't get me started on how much you appear in Dragon Chronicles.**

**"True, but I'm never actually seen again, except as -"**

**Okay, this interview is going in a spoiler-y direction. And we can't have that, can we? Next!**

**{Drobot, Whirlwind and Polarus enter}**

**What are you three doing here?**

**"Our Arkeyan Copter just crashed. We heard noises coming from here, and decided to check it out,"**

**Very funny. Now, if you don't mind, I have to finish the Author's Note. Who are the two mysterious dragons? What has happened to Insidae? And why have Drobot, Whirlwind and Polarus crashed on Earth? By the way, I will give a mystery prize to the first person to guess who the two 'ghost' dragons in the crystal chamber are. Peace!**


	13. Technow Gets Involved

Ch. 13: Technow Gets Involved

Polarus frowned, looking up at the elf-like being in front of him, his sister and Drobot. He was quite similar to an elf, but his skin was coloured a blend of pink, beige and white and his ears were really small. Plus, his hair was brown and seemed to have been rigorously styled and customised. Most elves had hair that was either blue or black.

He was wearing a black-and-grey shirt, with a black overcoat, and matching jeans. His heavy-duty boots, the black goggles on his forehead and the fact that there was a large gun slung over his back, not to mention a sword hanging at his waist, perfectly completed the 'Ready for BlackOps Battle' image.

The fact that he was holding his arms out to the heavens beseechingly and looking up at the ceiling ruined the image once more. "I said peace!" the stranger shouted. Polarus recalled how Drobot had thought he had heard something deeper into the city. After negotiating several passageways they had come to a sort of main thoroughfare, with a strange temple at the far end. The noises had been coming from one of the buildings on the side of the main road, and the three dragonoids had entered the building. To find this weird dude holding a screen in one hand and tapping it in various places in the other.

"Why have I not left the editing studios yet?" the strange person asked in frustration. Polarus looked around at the 'editing studios'. It was a large, rectangular room with semicircles of extra space at either end. One end was rimmed by desks, with half a dozen chairs. There were several shelves protruding from the walls at right angles, making the room seem somewhat like a small maze. An ornate candelabra was attached to the ceiling by a short brass chain, casting soft, even lighting over the entire area.

"Wait, I was up to the part where young Drobot, Polarus and Whirlwind crashed in Shamar. My editing studios are in Shamar, but this is supposed to be a converted form of Professor Pickle's laboratory, which is in the 'villager chat' version of Shamar, not the 'night battle' version of Shamar, so why are young Drobot, Whirlwind and Polarus standing here in the 'villager chat' when they crashed in the 'night battle', which aren't supposed to be connected whatsoever? Wait. GAIPHE! You did this! Now get me out of here right now or, I swear to Maxus Chaos that I will write you a horrible death scene during part 3 of the Dragon Chronicles!" the stranger ranted, shaking his fist at nothing in particular.

"What in Eon's beard is he going on about?" Whirlwind whispered to her white-furred sibling. Then the shadowy figure of a phoenix appeared in the room in front of the stranger, which was so large that it had to crouch down with it's entire spine pressed against the roof. The room was only just large enough for it. Whirlwind, Polarus and Drobot instinctively backed up to the doorway. The stranger, however, stood his ground. Then he realised something was wrong, and he too backed up to the doorway. "You - you - you're not the Gaiphe I know! You're the other one. The powerful one. The one that -"

'Yes, yes, we both know who I am. You cannot write the other me a death scene for it would create a major paradox in the time-space continuum of The Dragon Chronicles itself. And you should have realised when you tasked me with the creation of this world that I would not create separate versions for the three sections of each of the locations. I would have expected you to work that out with all of the - no, I cannot say that. And you, Technow, you are here now because there are things that you too must do for this multiverse,' A strange, intangible voice filled the minds of all four beings, and each sensed that it was the voice of the shadowy phoenix.

The stranger, whose name was now known to the three dragonoids to be Technow, frowned. "What am I supposed to do?"

'It is as you said,' and the four got a strange feeling that the shadowy phoenix was smiling like a proud parent. 'Maxus Chaos. But first, you must help return these three dragonoids to their home. This will help you when you reach Skylands. And don't worry, I left you something else to help. It's just outside,' And with those last few words echoing in the four beings' skulls, the shadowy phoenix vanished, leaving Drobot, Whirlwind, Polarus and Technow standing, confused. What looked like a feather of unknown origins appeared in front of Technow, and he grabbed hold of it in mid-air. "Must be some kind of charm to keep me human or something," Technow shrugged, and tucked it in his pocket.

"Something else to help," the human boy repeated, with a thoughtful frown. He turned, effortlessly jumped over the metal blade on Drobot's tail, and ran back to the thoroughfare.

There, the odd being drew up in surprise and laughed in pleasant shock. "The Tornado M3! Of course!" Drobot, with the assistance of his robotic wings, was the first to catch up. So he was the first to see Technow beaming at a large red biplane with blue highlights and what looked like a jet engine built into the bottom. It would seat the four of them, but only at a stretch. Technow would probably have to put up with a dragonoid on his lap. "But wait, the Tornado isn't equipped for travel through outer space. But the ships in the Eggfleet are! And the Eggfleet would logically be . . . in Eggmanland. Crud,"

"May I query as to the nature of the negative anomaly contained within the geospatial location organism designated Technow refers to as 'Eggmanland'?"

"Odds are it's gonna be chock full of evil robots at all times," Technow explained to the three dragonoids, Whirlwind and Polarus having just caught up. "We can fight," Whirlwind told him indignantly.

Technow facepalmed. "I know you can fight, I created you. As well as this entire world and everything in it. Also Skylands and everything in that. But in Eggmanland, at night, it becomes full of all kinds of monstrous nasties. Actually, that happens to pretty much this entire world, but it's worst in Eggmanland,"

Polarus smiled. "How bad could it be?"

"Picture a ten-foot-tall Cyclops. Turn it red with purple highlights. Give it muscles seven feet in diameter, antlers the size of the propellers on your broken Arkeyan Copter, the strength of an Arkeyan War Machine, the speed of water going over a waterfall, and a club that's basically a tree with it's branches pulled off. Create an army of them. That's what we're facing in Eggmanland at night,"

"Wait, YOU created this entire universe?" Whirlwind asked incredulously. "By the Ancients, why did you have to give me and Polarus such tragic lives? And what Shadeblazer did to Drobot? And why did you create it like that?"

"Don't remind me of that, I almost threw up writing it. I needed a reason for you three to join the Skylanders in two years, when you're old enough. And it was to create an awesome fight scene or two in the proper Dragon Chronicles,"

There was an age limitation for recruits to the Skylander ranks. They had to be at least teenagers, unless there was some kind of extenuating circumstances. Camo had been in the extenuating circumstances, as having nobody to look after him. The three dragonoids in Shamar were only around eleven.

"The three of us join the Skylanders?" Whirlwind asked in amazement.  
"Yeah, as soon as all three of you are old enough. And you do a good job of it too. Whirlwind, you end up as one of the most popular Skylanders of the age. And Drobot becomes one of the greatest geniuses in the Skylander ranks since The Silhouette himself. By the way, Dro, go easy on Tails when he shows up,"

"Seriously?" Polarus asked.

"Yep. But don't tell people about this sneak peek at your future. They'll think you're crazy. Just do what you think is right, and you'll be fine,"

"Wait, what do you mean, 'the proper Dragon Chronicles'?" Whirlwind asked.

"This is A Technical Tail. It was supposed to be a spin-off to explain you three a bit more. Then the other Gaiphe came in here and messed the whole thing up. This thing was supposed to be fifteen chapters maximum. From this point on, you were supposed to crash-land in Shamar, find an old train line, which would take you safely to Apotos where Drobot would find the Tornado, and Cogshine's robot dragon would attack you there. After a big fight, Drobot would use the parts of the robot dragon to upgrade the Tornado and the three of you fly back to Skylands in the newly outer space-ready Tornado. None of you were ever supposed to go anywhere near that cursed robot theme park Eggmanland,"

"Is that timeline still an option?" Polarus asked tentatively. Technow shook his head.

"Wait, did you say Cogshine's ROBOT DRAGON?" Whirlwind asked in scared shock, her blue eyes wide.

Technow nodded glumly. "Yeah, I got the idea from this Lego Ninjago Nindroid Mechdragon thingy. The plan was for it to attack you on the train, but - wait, Gaiphe hasn't done anything to Cogshine's end of things. Meaning Cogshine is still going to build that robot, and it's still going to track you down and try to suck out your blood as a pleasure for Cogshine,"

Polarus frowned. "What?"

"Yeah, Darkus messed up this power-giving technology with Cogshine in it, long story short it gave Cogshine infinite bloodlust, he builds a robot dragon and uses your DNA to track you down because he wants Drobot's genius to upgrade his robot so that he can control it directly, and he also programs it to kill anyone who stands in its way, and take their blood for Cogshine's enjoyment. Those two idiots,"

"So we have to fight our way through an army of robots and mutant Cyclopses, all the while running from a robotic dragon, to get back to our home. And the robot dragon will keep chasing us until either it's destroyed, or it's sucked every drop of blood from our bodies," Whirlwind assessed.

"Yep," Technow nodded.

Drobot had been surprisingly quiet throughout all of this. His servers had actually been assimilating every piece of this new information and he had been patiently waiting for it all to be condensed and the result to arrive. His calculations had resulted in his conclusion that he had nothing to contribute to the conversation, so he did not contribute and left the necessary exclamations of shock to the purely organic life forms. But he needed to confirm a couple of things yet.

"Final conclusion confirmation requested. Organic unit designated 'Cogshine' is during current time-period undergoing operation involving construction of an artificial abiotic-factor unit which undertakes an operation involving the destruction of this unit and units designated 'Polarus' and 'Whirlwind'?"

"Yep. And the point of view shot should be changing to Cogshine in 3, 2, 1,"

Cogshine burped. He was lying in the middle of the field, surrounded by sheep bones. The feathers on his head and wings were painted red with blood, as were his scaly flanks. There was blood in every crevice of his claws and his teeth, and somewhere deep inside him he knew that he would never get it all out. But he didn't care. The smell, the taste, the sensation of joy that came from tearing a being to shreds, he revelled in it, it was the greatest, most lovely sensation he had ever experienced. But it was exhausting. He needed something to collect the blood for him, that he could control, that he could use to shred things without ever tiring. What never tired?

The answer came in a flash. A robot.

He would need a lot of parts. And it would have to be dragonoid, so that he would be able to control it without much difficulty, and it would need to be able to spill blood, and yet also draw blood. Cogshine couldn't decide what he enjoyed more, actually cutting a being open and watching it's life-blood gush onto the floor, or drinking the blood, letting it swish through his teeth. But it could be done. And it would be done. And it would be the best spiller of blood Skylands had ever seen.

Oh, and it would have to be huge.

Cogshine dashed all over the castle, collecting pieces of paper, markers, and he even broke into Kaos' tower to get the first few parts. The little punk had been in the bathroom, and Cogshine considered attacking him, but he guessed Linagarnix wouldn't take kindly to the murder of her son. And he couldn't afford to take her on yet.

Emphasis on 'yet'.

Grasping a pencil, he started sketching.

"Hmm, claws on axles, one end with razor-sharp dagger-claws, one end with hammers, so that it can switch between them. Chainsaws built into wings, razor-sharp teeth, wait, I'm forgetting blood extraction. Yes, I'm going to need tubing running from every sharp end, with vacuum power, and probably a large turbine, too. But how will I control it? Drobot! He can control the tech in his suit with his mind, if I can get him and his suit, I can cannibalise the technology and control it directly from my mind! And without his suit, he's a weeping fountain of blood. Oh, yes, Drobot, you will be mine,"

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .**

**"Where's Technow?"**

**'Did you not read the chapter? He is trapped inside the story,'**

**"Then how are we supposed to do the Author's Note without an author? And how am I supposed to audition for censurer?"**

**'Relax, Riley, I have a plan,'**

**{An hour later}**

**"Hi, I'm Chris McClaine, and I am here as the substitute host of Total. Drama. Author's Notes!"**

**'We hired you to fill in for Technow, not to turn this into part of your old TV show,'**

**"Old! The premiere of the finale of season five was the day before yesterday!"**

**"The very fact that you made it to season five makes it old,"**

**"Shut. Up, you stupid dragon, and let me finish the introduction. Since the regular host is away, Gaiphe and Riley asked me to come over and fill in,'**

**"And we're going to fire you if you don't do it right,"**

**"Previously on Total. Drama. Author's Notes;"**

**'That's it, you're fired,"**

**{Chris sulks out}**

**"Well, okay then. Peace! Yes, always wanted to say that!"**


	14. The Dark of Night

Ch. 14: The Dark of Night

"Great, Gaiphe. Get us to fly into the stronghold of a massive army of battle robots and mutated embodiments of sadness, depression and the night itself with nothing but the Tornado M3," Technow muttered to himself, clasping a hand to his forehead.

Drobot and Whirlwind were squeezed into the rear cockpit, and the human teenager was being forced to contend with Polarus squashed into his lap. The white unicorn-dragon hybrid had curled up as best as he could, but his oversized wings still protruded, restricting his reach and forcing him to do most of the flying one-handed. "Does that stupid phoenix even realise that I barely have any idea how to fly a plane?"

Technow spotted Whirlwind's widened eyes and look of concern in the rear-view mirror. "I said barely. Luckily, this thing's been preprogrammed with the coordinates to Eggmanland into the Miles Electric,"

Polarus, who had been snoozing and had just groggily woken up, heard the last couple of words. "The what? Wassa Miles Electric?"

"It's the Tornado M3's detachable control panel. Has all kinds of useful features. Controlling the plane, language translation, signal interception, GPS function, video games, fashion advice, yadda yadda yadda,"

Noticing the surprised stares of the two hybrids on the plane, he added "Yes, it gives fashion advice. This thing's in Chu-naan with the other Gaiphe most of the time, and for some reason she loves looking good, even though she lives alone. Phoenixes. Go figure,"

The Tornado was skimming the massive, fluffy banks of clouds high above the planet. High in the sky, the sun was shining, and Whirlwind had spreadeagled her long, blue wings and was enjoying the feel of the rays of warmth on her soft, sensitive feathers.

Drobot looked over at her, squashed into the same seat as he was, and remembered what it had been like to feel the sun on his wings. The cyber dragon mentally cursed Shadeblazer for forcing him to build these 'abiotic robotic cyberkinetic monstrosities which are necessary for the continued survival of this unit', as he put it. For his robotic parts could do a lot of the things that his original body parts could, but the one thing his original parts had been able to do that his mechanical limbs and engineered parts couldn't do, was feel.

"Okay, we're approaching Eggmanland. Be on the lookout for a massive floating island with a humongous theme park built on top of it,"

Polarus frowned. "What?"

"Yeah, I have no idea why that idiot built his ultimate stronghold, constructed with the power of night itself, as an amusement park," Technow shrugged.

"No, I meant the massive floating island part. I thought we were outside Skylands, and so there would be no floating islands. And I thought you created everything in this universe, so wouldn't you know why he built it as an amusement park?"

"I said I created everything in this universe. I never said everything in this universe was my idea. And this floating island is the stopper. You see, there was a time when this entire planet was broken into seven pieces, eight if you count it's molten, fiery core. Long story short, on each of the seven pieces there is an ancient temple of power that, when a certain relic is restored to it's position in the temple, will cause the piece of the planet to be restored to it's position on the core of the planet. Over time, six of the seven relics were restored to their temples and thus six of the seven pieces of the planet were restored. Incidentally, you landed on the fifth piece. But the seventh relic, the one for the temple buried beneath Eggmanland, has been lost for millennia. Nobody knows where it is, except me, of course. But there is an ancient being of great evil power living within the planet core. No one dares speak its name. It is this being that creates the monsters I told you about. If only the seventh relic could be found, and returned to its place in the temple, the stopper could seal the final gap in the ancient evil's prison, trapping it and it's creations for eternity. But alas, the final relic has been lost for thousands of years,"

Technow broke off his explanation. "What do you think? Do I do a good village elder?"

Whirlwind clasped a paw to her horn and shook her blue-furred head. "Boys,"

Technow turned and raised an eyebrow. "You think me and Polarus are bad, you do not want to meet the other people at my high school. There was one, who, when he heard that I had had a sort-of girlfriend once, had one question for me. And I quote; 'How big were her boobies?'. Sick jerks. The sad thing is, the person who asked me that is one of the five smartest people in my class,"

Dragon and dragonoid females themselves didn't have protruding breasts, unless there was the rare case of a dragon/feline Mabu variant hybrid, or the even rarer case of an elf/dragon hybrid, and even then it was inconsistent, but everyone knew how inappropriate matters like these were not for casual discussion.

"Is that sort of thing normal where you come from?" Whirlwind asked in a shocked whisper. Technow instantly understood what she meant. "It's supposed to have as much of a taboo on it as it does in Skylands, and yet it's the only thing my world's teenage boys talk about. Well, it and various boring types of sport. Sometimes, I seriously fear for the future of the human race. Honestly, what is the big deal about sports, er, stuff!"

The flight continued in silence. But finally, Polarus broke it. "We should find the seventh relic,"

"No," Technow responded instantly.

"But, it would be saving this entire world!" Whirlwind, who had immediately seen the merit in the idea, complained. "I know, and this world will be saved. But not now, and not by you. That is a task for the heroes of the true Dragon Chronices. Don't worry, you'll still be there to see it. Y'now, probably. I haven't written that part yet, so we'll just have to see how it turns out. Whirlwind and Drobot probably will, based on my plan, but I'm not too sure about Polarus. Would you prefer to see this place whole again, or blow up the, er, enemy forces that I can't name yet, 's stronghold?" This last question was directed at Polarus, who was still sleepily lying in his lap, almost like a cat.

"Blow it up," the hybrid responded instantly.

The flight continued in peaceful silence once more for a couple of hours, during which the four enjoyed a spectacular sunset.

This peace was broken by a volley of purple energy spheres arcing towards the Tornado M3. "If you look to whatever they call the direction in front of you, you will see the first sight of the minions of the beast that must not be named. In other words, EVASIVE ACTION!"

Technow yanked back on the Tornado's throttle, pulling the biplane into a steep ascent. The spheres whizzed underneath, more than one narrowly missing the tail-fins.

The plane shredded a hole through a bank of clouds, leaving a biplane-shaped hole.

"Were those the beast's minions?" Polarus asked, looking worried.

"You wish. Those were the missiles that this type of the minions shoot at threats,"  
About a dozen indistinct, purple-and-black shapes that looked like heads with two large, devil-like horns on the cheeks, one on each side, severed from their bodies, came into view. As they got closer, they could see two little red eyes without iris or pupil on the central purple orb, and a small tail with an arrowhead-like prong at the end on each one hanging below its main body. As the four watched, purple balls of plasmic energy began to generate at the prong of each tail.

"And those are the Dark Bats. Be glad they're all purple. The red and cyan ones are supercharged, and the green and yellow ones electrocute you. By the way, that goes for all of the beast's minions. Remember that,"

With a twisting loop-de-loop, the Tornado dodged a second volley. "I require additional information. For what purpose are these unknown artificial life form creations designated as bats?" Drobot asked.

"The dude's right. They're nothing like bats," Polarus added.  
"Remember what I said about creating everything in this universe, but not all of it being my idea? The Dark Bats are a good example. Anyways, time to go on the offensive,"

Technow popped the glass casing on a switch near the corner, and flipped the same switch. The connections between the upper and lower pairs of wings folded into the upper wings, but stopped short as twin laser cannons appeared, wedged between the two pieces of metal. The wings changed their alignment into a shape reminiscent of a Star Wars X-wing starfighter, and the rocket booster kicked in. The three fins at the tail of the plane rotated backwards into a more streamlined position, and the propeller folded itself up and retreated into the engine.

The human teenager grabbed a pair of aviator's goggles off a hook in his cockpit, and strapped them over his head. He raised a cocky eyebrow and smiled, also cockily. "Let's fly,"

Cogshine was carefully welding a saw blade to an axle. Being the technical genius he was, he had already built the main body, the head, and the front two legs. Every claw in the paws and tooth in the jaws of the robot possessed a built-in syringe, which sucked blood out of anything it punctured. Sure enough, Cogshine had also built a hinge system to transform the claws into massive hammers. And it was on a great scale, twice the size of a regular-sized full-grown dragon. He was just finishing off the right wing, which, sure enough, was comprised of three long chainsaws, each with rocket thrusters to assist with flight, although he hadn't installed the blood syringes into the chainsaws. Too messy. But, he had installed an extra circular saw blade at the front of the wing. The more bloodshed the better.

The dragonoid hybrid finished the welding, pulled off his safety mask, took a bite out of a nearby dead sheep and sighed contentedly. Life was bloody well good.  
Cogshine took a second to chuckle at the pun, before strapping the safety mask back on and getting to work.

Since the accident in the growth chamber, he had noticed he had a surprising level of control of technology. And it was making it really easy to build the robot.

The laser cannons had been firing non-stop and almost all of the Dark Bats had been destroyed. A well-aimed laser from Drobot's helmet finally disintegrated the last one. And, weirdly, it literally dissolved into a murky black puddle, which evaporated into the atmosphere.

Technow spotted Whirlwind watching the spectacle. "It's more impressive when they dissolve on the ground, not in mid-air," he ascertained.

Then Drobot, with his visor's vision enhancement technology, noticed the clouds being funnelled into a sort of whirlpool shape. "Nimbocumulatic anomaly located. The direction of the attention of all units is required to all units' immediate foreground,"

Polarus, Whirlwind and Technow all looked in the direction Drobot was pointing.  
A massive metal flotilla, kept aloft by countless rotors and jets, rose into view. It was coloured red and purple, shaped rather like a massive cauldron with a painted face that looked like a jester from a playing card, and seemed to have a hazy, almost indistinct quality to it. Technow swore. "Aww, crag,"

"Is that Eggmanland?" Polarus naively asked.

"I wish. That's the Egg Cauldron, Eggmanland's primary aerial defense system. But it's supposed to be orange and gold. The beast that must not be named must have used her power to take control of it. Apparently, conflict is inevitable, so I'm going to tell you this now, rather than wait for us to land. And in case we get separated. No matter what, not under any circumstances, should you let any of the beast's minions touch you. At all. You see, these minions are the embodiment of both night and depression. Such sadness, in general, that touching one will make you so sad that it will allow one to possess you. And if that happens, well, let's just say it's a good idea to get used to having no more than an animal level of intelligence and being subject to every whim of the beast that must not be named. And don't think that the fact that I have a different destiny in mind for you makes you immune. The only parts of the future that cannot be changed are the parts I've already written, and they don't include you yet,"

So the last part of the last sentence was a small lie, in Drobot's case, anyway. The time-space continuum was a complicated thing, and a little lying would save Technow a lot of explaining that they really didn't have time for.

"Prepare to engage," Technow instructed, putting on a stereotypical pilot's voice. Surprisingly enough, the mouth of the Egg Cauldron's grinning face, which everyone had thought was just for decoration, opened, and several missiles were launched out of it.

It was a simple matter for Technow to avoid them or for either Drobot's or the Tornado's lasers to shoot them out of the sky. What was worrying, was that whenever the lasers caused a missile to detonate, it erupted in a cloud of black smoke. Just like what the Dark Bats had dissolved into.

Eventually whatever was piloting the Dark Cauldron realised that the missiles weren't doing any good. Whirlwind realised that throughout all this, the Tornado had still been moving forwards, meaning that they were still steadily moving closer to Eggmanland.

It also meant the Dark Cauldron was flying backwards and still maintaining a fight with them.

"Is it time to worry yet?" Polarus asked nervously. And with good reason. Unseen beings were raising a tower crackling with electricity from the top of the Dark Cauldron. Well, mostly unseen. Polarus caught a horrifying glimpse of one.

It was disgusting. It reminded him of an Arctic Snowroller with a short, curved tail and the same devil-like fork at the end, but it actually had a neck, and it's head was more similar that of a lizard's, and its arms and legs were long, almost, but not quite, spindly. And there were two horns protruding from where its nose would be, if it had a nose. One was in the conventional position, the other jutted out behind it, back towards its eyes, together forming a broken oval shape. The entire thing was jet-black, with red eyes and black pupils. It had no irises.

"Eeek! What was that?" Polarus gasped.

"I'm guessing you saw a Nightmare. They're the most weak and pathetic of the beast's minions. The only things they can actually do to fight is short-range punching, and possession. They're mainly used as distractions, and only actually pose threats in large numbers. The question is, what type was it?"

"Type?" Whirlwind questioned.

"There are four types of Nightmare. The regular type, which is small and black with purple highlights, the Red type, same as the regular but a bit stronger and faster, and red instead of black, the Deep type, which has the same colours as the normal type but is again even stronger and faster, mainly distinguished by its two-metre tail, and the Deep Red type, which is a red and purple Deep type, and the strongest and fastest of the lot. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, the Deep and Deep Red Nightmares have long-range attacks. Somehow, they can stretch their arms for several metres. Don't ask me how," Technow explained.

"Uh, guys?" Whirlwind tried to interrupt. She was ignored.

"The one I saw was jet black all over, with red and black eyes," Polarus responded, shivering.

"Uh, guys?" Whirlwind tried again.

"You must have seen it wrong. No minion of the beast is pure black. They always have purple or cyan on them somewhere," Technow told the hybrid.

"Unit designated Whirlwind is correct in unit's requiration of units designated Polarus and Technow's attention. The Dark Cauldron is performing an operation that worries this unit," Drobot reported.

Everybody's attention was focused on the giant machine, whose electric tower was literally pulsing with black electricity. It was like the laws of time and space were disregarded when it came to this thing, because, impossibly, the tower was actually moving to a rhythm of its own. There were no visible joints, or axles, or hinges, or any machinery of any kind. The supposedly solid, rigid, mindless steel was simply moving and bending of its own volition. "How is that even possible?" Whirlwind whispered, shocked.

Suddenly, the tower bent itself back until it was almost horizontal, all of the black electricity collecting in a perfectly circular singularity at it's apex, before launching itself at the Tornado like a catapult, sending the singularity of dark lightning hurtling towards the biplane.

Rolling his eyes and shaking his head, almost as if he was disappointed, Technow dropped the plane into a steep dive. The ball of dark lightning harmlessly passed overhead. "Honestly, I'm disappointed," Technow commented. "Such a big build-up, for what? A ball of lightning that we dodge as easily as everything else shot at us?"

Whirlwind looked behind her. "It's coming baaaaaack!" she screamed, panicking.  
Technow looked behind her. Sure enough, the ball of lightning was curving, changing its trajectory, aiming back towards them. "Stop screaming, you'll never make a Skylander if you panic at every heat-seeking ball of lightning shot at you," Technow retorted at the blue-furred hybrid.

The weirdest thing about this entire scenario was that the Egg Cauldron's grinning face had also come to life and was laughing non-stop as Technow's surprisingly good piloting skills turned out to be the only thing keeping the four alive.

Finally, the human boy had had enough. Creatively twisting the throttle, he dive-bombed the Dark Cauldron. Sure enough, the orb of darkness followed.  
Executing perfect timing, Technow dropped out of the dive and soared beneath the Dark Cauldron with centimetres to spare.

The electric singularity disappeared into the mouth of the Dark Cauldron. Polarus prepared for the explosion.

Instead, absurdly, it burped. But it didn't matter. The Tornado M3 had made it past the Dark Cauldron, and Technow was prepared to bet his life on the biplane being faster than that monstrous flotilla.

Then, suddenly, a massive cliff loomed out of the banks of clouds. Technow gasped and frantically yanked on the joystick. The Tornado swerved away and, pulling into a steep ascent, began flying straight up the cliff face. "How high a mountain is this?" Polarus asked, his incredulity betrayed by his vocal tones. "This isn't a mountain, idiot," Whirlwind snapped at him.

"She's right. We're currently flying up the side of the stopper piece," Technow told his passengers.

Just as suddenly as the cliff had appeared, it vanished, and as the plane levelled out, the four got a glimpse of paradise.

The top of the stopper piece of the planet could have been paradise. It was shaped like a quadrilateral, with an island that looked like Hawaii leading from the edge they had just come over to a landmass in the centre. The rest of the stopper was sparkling blue ocean. It was probably a thousand square kilometres in total. It could have been paradise.

Instead, a massive red theme park took up most of the land, and some parts stuck out over the ocean too. There was every attraction imaginable there. Carousels, Ferris wheels, roller coasters of different shapes and sizes, and Polarus could swear he saw the largest dodgem car rink in existence sandwiched between a couple of tilt-a-whirls. It was a kid's dream. Except for the fact that all kinds of purple, red and black monstrosities were wandering around the place, seemingly aimlessly.  
They saw flocks of Dark Bats, in both the purple they had previously seen them in, as well as green ones and even the occasional red one or two, as well as the four different sub-species of Nightmare, the massive one-eyed Dark Titans armed with giant wooden clubs in both purple-and-black, and red with cyan highlights, as well as multiple others that they didn't recognise.

There were these weird Spell Punk-like floating wizards, that looked like elf/Spell Punk hybrids, also in variations of purple, red and green, and Polarus could swear that he saw one or two that were cyan, as well as some that looked similar to Dark Bats but had smaller horns and no tail, in both purple-black and red and cyan. There was even a few large black-and purple snakes slithering around, some of which had dragon-like heads, some had more reptilian heads.

The only constructions that broke with the amusement park theme were three massive Roman Colosseum-like constructions with large domed roofs arranged in a triangle. One of the three had vast arrays of torches and braziers of all shapes and sizes decorating it, with an entranceway ornament ally sculpted into the irregular shape of an open flame, one was encrusted with ice and various icy stalactites and stalagmites, with an entrance carved into the shape of a dragon's head, and the third was covered with artistically positioned spikes, and had an entranceway made up of a pair of massive hammers.

The four were so impressed with the spectacle that they didn't even see the missile aimed towards them, launched from an unknown location, until it was mere metres away. By then it was too late anyway.

Finally, Technow noticed the incoming object. "Aww, crag! Abandon ship!"

**"Oh, I really hope they're okay!"**

**'Don't worry, Riley, they can all fly,'**

**"Technow can't. Remember, Gaiphe? He's human. They usually can't fly,"**

**'Do not worry, this is Technow we're talking about. It would not surprise me if he pulled out some kind of Kids Next Door rocket shoes or something, or maybe the other me will show up and save his aching butt. I just worry for Polarus, all (CENSORED FOR SPOILERS),'**

**'I see why Technow gave you that job. So, should we take another crack at finding a new host for the Author's Notes?'**

**"After last week's Chris-tastrophe? No way. And you've been spending time with (CENSORED FOR SPOILERS) again, haven't you?"**

**'Technow didn't see anything wrong with mentioning (CENSORED FOR SPOILERS)'s name,'**

**"Well I do. Now, let's wrap this up. Peace!"**


	15. If This Is Eggmanland, Where's Eggman?

Ch. 15: If This Is Eggmanland, Where's Eggman?

Polarus and Whirlwind jumped out and spread their wings, Drobot grabbed Technow in his claws and fired up his afterburners as the missile, which was a very odd shape, circular and spiky with no apparent means of propulsion, slammed into the Tornado. The four glided through the air before landing in an empty Ferris wheel carriage. They watched as the missile punched into the Tornado M3, for some reason stopping right in the cockpit, where it redefined itself into a shadowy silhouette with large arms that were out of proportion to the rest of its body, and tendrils of dark matter spread from it across the plane, transforming it as they watched.

The propeller reemerged, but there was now two of them, with one spinning anti-clockwise and one spinning clock-wise, the four wings returned to their original positions, but curved backwards a bit and became razor-sharp. The same thing happened to the newly cursed aeroplane's tail, as the entire thing turned red, with cyan highlights on it's wings and tail, which immediately burst into flames. But the plane somehow remained undamaged. But scariest of all, two slitted, light purple, almost reptilian eyes with white irises and tiny black pupils appeared on either sides of the plane's now cone-shaped engine. The dark silhouette laughed. "Beauty! I finally got my plane back,"

Whirlwind looked at Technow in incredulous shock. "His plane?!" she gasped.

Technow nodded grimly. "Yeah. That's what happens when Dark Gaia's minions possess a being," he told the three, looking almost depressed. "The only reason the Tornado was saved from going down with him was because his girlfriend took it to save herself. I wonder what happened to her?"

Polarus frowned. "Shouldn't you know that?"

"Hey, I haven't written that part of the story yet. Speaking of which, Gaiphe and Riley are doing a great job with this one. Thumbs up, girls!"

Back in the Shamar editing studio, Riley smiled. "Aww, shucks. He's so sweet. If only he were a dragonoid,"

Of course, the evil silhouette, now in control of the plane, dive-bombed the four, orbs of dark purple fire being rapid-fired at them. Polarus shouted "Hit the deck!" as they all ducked beneath the carriage frame and the projectiles passed over their heads, shortly followed by the Dark Tornado.

Whoever the dark silhouette was, it had clearly been ages since he had flown a plane, because he spun and one of the wings cut straight through the axle between the wheel and one of its support bars. The other support frame, clearly not up to the task of holding the Ferris wheel by itself, buckled under the pressure and the bottom of the wheel crashed to the ground. The momentum did not abate, so the Ferris wheel started rolling through Eggmanland like a unicycle built for an Arkeyan Robot. The Dark Tornado span in mid-air and flew after the great wheel.

Technow looked ahead and realised that they would crash into the ocean in a few minutes, so when their carriage reached the bottom, he shouted "Abandon ship! Again!" and the four jumped out - again. This time, however, they landed safely on the ground.

And, looking around, realised they were surrounded by monstrous minions. There were two Red Titans, as well as another three in the normal, purple-black hues, several Dark Bats in purple and green, luckily there were no red ones, and a couple of the green Spell Punk-like mages.

"Oh, crud," Polarus and Technow said at the exact same time, resulting in them both looking at each other in surprise.

"Okay, it's the Titans you need to worry about most. Everything else is ranged attacks. Unless the Dark Lightning Masters start summoning Dark Frights, which really aren't that tough to handle, as long as you don't touch them,"

Whirlwind experimentally launched a rainbow at one of the neon green Dark Masters. To her surprise, it disintegrated into a puddle of darkness.

Technow facepalmed. "Of course! They're creatures of darkness, light is fatal to them!"

Growing in confidence, Whirlwind and Polarus shot rainbow after rainbow at the monstrosities and Drobot activated his suit's searchlights, shining them onto the Red Titans, which ineffectually tried to hide behind their tree-clubs as the spotlights melted them into oversized puddles of black rain. Technow even pulled a flashlight from his pocket, trying to use it to assist.

But, unseen behind a broken candy floss cart, one of the Dark Lightning Masters began an evil incantation.

Drobot turned off his spotlights. "According to my optic reference points, this unit and alternate units designated Technow, Whirlwind and Polarus have completed the operation designated 'eradicate and/or disintegrate all artificial life forms designated 'minions of the beast that must not be named'' to its fullest extent,"

"What was that?" Whirlwind frowned, pricking up her lapine ears as she heard an animalistic squeal. Then, three red-and-cyan beings that looked like Dark Bats with no horns or tail, which Whirlwind was pretty sure she had seen a couple of in the streets of Eggmanland, rose up from behind the broken fairy floss stool and launched themselves at the four. Literally launched, flattening themselves into pancakes and bouncing like tennis balls along the ground in the direction of the four people. "Those are the Dark Frights,"

Polarus smirked. "They don't seem so tough,"

Technow shone his flashlight at them and they disintegrated into piles of discoloured ectoplasm. "They aren't, which is why they're usually used as distractions," Then, a great ball of lightning flew from behind the fairy floss cart, narrowly missing Drobot, who would have been especially weak to it. Technow shrugged, and added "Like that,"

Whirlwind started to panic. "We can't hit that thing as long as it's behind there. We need to find shelter!"

Polarus, retreating, accidentally trod on a hidden button. A large circular panel that had been invisible before slid open. "I've found cover!" the snowy hybrid shouted at Drobot, Technow and Whirlwind, before tucking in his wings and jumping into the hole.

What the white dragonoid hadn't considered was that it was pitch black down in the hole. A thunk accompanied by a startled scream that was cut off as quickly as it began alerted him to Whirlwind's presence. A muffled "Oof!" told him Technow had arrived, and finally a metallic clang against the iron wall of the tubular tunnel meant Drobot was there, completing their team. Above them, the motorised manhole slid back into place.

Technow fumbled for his torch, then realised he had dropped it in the scramble to get to the tunnel. Luckily, Drobot's searchlights were working fine, and they highlighted a switch on the wall. Somewhat nervously, Whirlwind reached up with her left forepaw and flicked it.

Dingy green lighting panels lit up the length of the tunnel, revealing them to be in a pipe-like tunnel that led deeper into the stopper piece. "Eew! Are we in a sewer?" Whirlwind gasped. "Luckily for us, no, but you are going to be joining the Skylanders, after all, thus I can guarantee you that you'll end up in an actual sewer sooner or later, so get over it, princess," Technow seemed annoyed at something.

"May I query as to the motivation for unit designated Technow to be undergoing an operation involving the activation of the biotic emotion classified as annoyance?" Drobot asked, concerned, although you wouldn't know it to listen to his booming voice modifier. "You'll find out soon enough," Technow told him briefly.

"I don't like being kept in suspense," Polarus put in.

Technow smirked in a supremely annoying manner. "Let's just say that, as long as Ivo plays along, you're about to find out why this place is called Eggmanland,"

They followed the tunnel for about half an hour, before finally coming out into a large cavern that had a lot of very strange things about it. For starters, the roof and floor were about a kilometre and a half away from each other, and the floor space was two kilometres by two kilometres. One corner was, for some reason, taken up by a pool of lava, and the entire place was strewn with machine parts of all shapes and sizes. Behind his mask, Drobot's eyes lit up at the sight of all of the machinery. Surely, with this level of materials, he could build something to get him, Whirlwind and Polarus back to Skylands.

But the strangest thing was the light source. To put it simply, it was like whoever had designed the chamber had tried to make sure that it always seemed like the night. There were hundreds of tiny, star-like lamps, and even an extravagantly constructed false full moon. The entire roof was also painted a deep shade of navy blue, just like the night sky. Whoever had built this place had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure that it seemed like night-time at all times.

Then one of the piles of machine parts shifted and the strangest being any of the four present had ever seen emerged.

He looked all at once like a human, such as Technow, a Nightmare, and some kind of wolf or fox. His body was mostly human in shape, despite being rather rotund, but covered in bright red fur, with furless pads on his hands and feet. It was here that the resemblance to a Nightmare was evident, for his hands/feet/paws/claws/whatever they were's pads were black, with red and yellow jaguar-like blotches they had seen on some of the monsters on them. As he turned to the side a bit to see them all clearly, they could see his tail, which was the strangest thing yet. There were bald, Deep Nightmare-like spines running down his back and tail, which started out like that of a Nightmare, but after a foot and a half, it expanded and became bushy, like that of a fox, giving him a tail four feet long. His head was the weirdest part of all, for it resembled that of a fox, but had a ridiculously positioned brown moustache at the base of his muzzle, and he was wearing a pair of old-fashioned blue reflective spectacles. "Ah, I see I have guests," he boomed, in a tone that seemed almost fatherly.

"Uh, who are you? Dragon feathers, what are you?" Polarus asked, placing extra emphasis on the word 'what'.

The being sighed. "Well, who I was I'm not proud of. Heck, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that the entire mess this planet's in is my fault. It was because of my invention that the beast was awakened in the first place. I thought I could control it. I was wrong. She made me the same type of lycanthrope that I had made my arch-enemy, who I now realise was the hero all along, and imprisoned me here, in a place where I am trapped in my night-shape for eternity. I'm not making much sense, am I?"

Polarus and Whirlwind shook their heads at the same time. Drobot responded with a "Negative," Technow, of course, already knew exactly what the being was talking about, but shrugged and advised him "You might want to back up a bit, Gerald. After all, your failure was even more spectacular than his, and they don't know a thing about it,"

Suddenly, the being's claw was at Technow's throat. Yet neither of them had moved. Finally, the three dragonoids realised that somehow, impossibly, the thing's forearm had stretched the five metres between its owner and Technow, in the same instant as unsheathing amazingly sharp claws from its digits. "Never. Insult. My. Grandfather. You little," For a second, the thing sounded less like a father, more insane, maniacal. A vein bulged in his throat.

Then, realising what he was doing, he retracted his forearm and looked apologetic. "Sorry. As punishment for trying to enslave her, the abomination used my own experimental technology to combine me on an atomic level with one of her Deep Nightmares, and my captive, Professor Henry Mareta, both mentally and physically. Resulting in this abomination of a body I have now. Our three consciousnesses all occupied this combined body, and at first fought for dominance. But it was a classified experiment that I abandoned for a reason. My personality was the only one that made it through intact. That of the Nightmare was severely damaged, and poor old Henry . . . . didn't make it," He sighed, depressed at the thought of the professor's demise. "It was a simple matter for my intellect to eradicate the Nightmare. But both of the other consciousnesses rubbed off on me, to an extent. It's thanks to the remnants of Professor Mareta in my brain that I realised that what I had done all my life was wrong,"

The being took a deep breath. "I'm not proud of who I was, or what I spent my life doing. I just wish I had a chance to fix everything, to make it all right again. So, just call me Lync. As in, lycanthrope," Drobot's servers noticed how Lync had, throughout his explanation, been very careful not to tell them his real name. They communicated that snippet of information to him, which caused the dragon to suspiciously raise a scaly brow. Interesting, he thought.

Lync continued his explanation. "You see, all of the monsters in this world are actually broken-off pieces of the great evil at the centre of the earth. if a being possesses one of these piece of the beast that must not be named within them, then it causes a transformation at night. This is what has happened to me. And, as here I am in a place where it is always night, I am always transformed. If I could get into the sunlight, it would banish the Nightmare parts from my body, leaving me as just me and Professor Mareta, and quite possibly separate me and him too. It could even return the Professor to life. But due to Dark Gaia's influence, I cannot leave this place,"

"Why not?" Whirlwind frowned.

Lync sighed. "Watch," He hoisted his rotund body off the bench he had been sitting on, and started walking towards the pipe-shaped entrance that they had come on through. But the second that his body crossed the threshold, a purple energy field appeared, and try as he might Lync could not pass through. Drobot, intent on testing it, also moved over to the energy barrier. Waving his forepaw around, he discovered that he could pass through with no more than a slight chill. "It's the fragment of the abomination inside me. She and her creations cannot pass through energy fields like those. And because one of them is part of me, as long as I am in this form, I cannot pass through either. If I could just return to my daytime form, they would be no more a barrier to me than they are to you. But alas, that will never be,"

Technow did his best to reassure the ex-evil genius. "Don't worry, Ivo, your time will come," he whispered, trying to make sure that the three dragonoids didn't hear.

Lync stood straight up, which, due to his abnormally long legs and rotund body shape, made him look like a furry bowling ball with limbs balanced on a trio of sticks, as he was using his tail for extra support. "How do you know my name?" he demanded.

"I created this universe, I know everything. Mostly," Technow smirked.

"So, you know about my past," Lync presumed. Technow nodded. "So that's how you knew my grandfather's name,"

"Yep. And don't worry, you won't be stuck like this forever. But right now, we need to get these three back to their world. I know you've been working on something like that,"

At this, Lync smiled properly for the first time in a while. "The Dragoon. You do know everything. But I made that thing to destroy the abomination once and for all,"

But Technow shook his head. "It won't work. The only thing that can defeat her is returning the stopper to its place in the hole in the world, together with the Colossus. And nobody's getting to the Colossus as long as Eggmanland exists. I know that the Dragoon is equipped for space travel. Whaddya say?"

**"Ooh, the Dragoon, I love that thing!"**

**'Yeah, you love THE DRAGOON, not anything else,'**

**"What are you saying, girlfriend?"**

**{Doorbell rings}**

**"Who's that?"**

**'The latest temporary Author's Note host. That I hired,'**

**"This had better not be anyone from Total Drama. Sure, Technow loves that show, but Chris really grinds my claws,"**

**'You don't have claws. But no, it's -'**

**"Something you're going to regret for the rest of your lives, both of you," {evil laughter}**

**"Oh, crud. Is that -?"**

**'Yes, Technow's rubbing off on you. Oh, and AAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!**


	16. Dragons and Dragoons

Ch. 16: Dragons and Dragoons

"Finally!" Cogshine shouted. "At last, my robot is complete!" And it was amazing, in a twisted, evil, destructive way. There were twin saw blades on each of it's wings, it's claws were as sharp as needles, and blades adorned its stainless steel wings in every way possible. Its scalene, iris-and-pupil-less eyes glowed red, and there were motorised wheels on its paws. The entire body was shining steel of varying shades of grey and shining, razor-sharp blades ran all along its body, from the top of its head to near the base of its tail, and spiralled off along all six of its limbs.

Cogshine smiled, and loaded a single scale that he had taken from Drobot's wing into a scanner in the robot's chest. "Now. Find this being, harvest his vital liquids and those of any being that attempts to interfere with this operation. Understand?"

"Operation understood and accepted. Do you wish me to commence operation now?" the robot asked in a soothing, lilting tone.

"Commence operation," Cogshine commanded.

The robot leapt into the air, kick-started its thrusters, and flew off the island. Cogshine watched with pride as it flew away - then with shock as it dive-bombed straight beneath the cloudy floor of Skylands. "Well, that was a disappointment," the hybrid frowned. "Guess we're going to 2.0," he dragon-shrugged.

Flexing his muscles and gritting his sharp, canine teeth, Lync heaved at a large lever in the corner.

Two massive doors that had been amazingly disguised as a featureless rock face swung open inwards, revealing a chamber that, while not as large as the first, was still colossal. And, housed inside the chamber, was a massive robot that looked a bit like a knight.

The entire thing was encased in sleek, shiny red metal that was a shade quite similar to Lync's fur. The chest and stomach was strong and bulky, had three glowing green orbs encased in a thick glass container, and was comprised of rings of metal of varying sizes attached to one another, with rows of headlights on every second ring. The robot's right arm brandished a twenty-metre-long, rapier-like drill, while its left carried a thick, titanium shield the same colour as the rest of the robot's plating, adorned with a silhouetted black face that possessed a massive moustache, similar to Lync's own, also wearing goggles with pupil-less white eyes in the centre. Each one of its wrists was also adorned with a bulky, cylindrical energy cannon. The robot's legs were surprisingly small compared to the rest of the robot, and seemed to be comprised of fuel tanks with heavy armour, and, of course, joints, while the feet were multiple large rocket boosters fed by thick titanium tubing connected to the tanks. Two metal wings protruded from the device's back, but they had no membrane, they were little more than robotic skeletons of wings equipped with rocket thrusters. The only strange thing was, instead of a head, or anything that resembled a cockpit, there was a large, dome-shaped hole where the neck normally was. "I give you, The Ultra-Hyper-Prototype-3!"

"Where's the head?" Polarus asked, getting straight to the point.

"Like all my inventions, rather than waste materials building a new cockpit for each new machine, I built a single, multi-use cockpit that can attach itself to all of my creations. It was a good idea because they invariably get destroyed by the same dogooding little monster!" Lync sighed. "After about a hundred years in here, I realised that all along, he had been the good guy, and I was seen as an evil, megalomaniacal tyrant by everyone except myself. Like I said, I'm not proud of what I spent my natural life doing. Now the abomination corrupted him, and he's one of her greatest slaves. Another hole I dug myself into,"

Technow raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, we met him,"

"We have?" Whirlwind and Polarus asked simultaneously, as Lync frowned and asked "You have?"

"He was also the original owner of the Tornado M3, and responsible for the restoration of the other six pieces of this planet. He came so close, only to fall at the last hurdle," Technow explained to the three dragonoids. Lync, who already knew this, returned to preparing the Dragoon.

"So that shadowy silhouette who transformed the plane and tried to kill us used to be this world's greatest defender of light?" Whirlwind gasped.

"Exactly. And he was the only person in the world who actually had protection against the beast that must not be named. That is why we need to get the heck out of this godforsaken cursed amusement park!" Technow exclaimed, looking worried.

"I would request the knowledge of this lost being's designated call-sign," Drobot boomed. "Sorry, Dro, can't tell you. Telling you would cause a great big problem in the time-space continuum, and totally give away half of Part 3 of Dragon Chronicles,"

A realisation struck Whirlwind. "Wait, if that's the Ultra-Hyper-Prototype-3, do we want to know what happened to the Ultra-Hyper-Prototypes 1 and 2?" the dragonoid hybrid asked nervously.

Lync frowned. "Well, the destruction of my Ultra-Hyper-Prototype-1 was the last thing that my nemesis achieved before the abomination took control of him, and I honestly have no idea what happened to number two. I never used it, and when I questioned the abomination about it, she said she hadn't done anything with and/or to it either. So, I can't tell you any more than that,"

Lync twisted a large dial with a protruding handle set into the floor. An entire rack of spherical devices emerged from the side of the cavern. Each one was opaque titanium on the bottom half, transparent reinforced glass on the dome at the top. There were two eye-like spotlights on the front, and, peering inside one, Drobot could see a large bank of controls along one side, and a long, padded, if not comfortable, bench along the rest of its inner circumference, which, like the plating of the Dragoon, was a bright red. "I've been trapped here for five thousand years. You would not believe the amount of stuff I've built. You should have seen the Cerberus. Heck, you should have seen the Wyvern,"

Polarus, meanwhile, had noticed something odd about the Dragoon. "What's that symbol on the shield?" the snow-white hybrid asked.

"It was the national flag of Eggmanland. The abomination changed it when she took control of the planet. Be glad you arrived on this world during the day, this place's ozone layer gets really scary at night. So, we, of course, are going to have to wait until daylight for you to make your escape. I suppose it was a bit vain of me to put my face on the area's new flag, but it seemed like a good idea at the time," Lync explained, looking sheepish, which looked really weird on his fox-like face.

Drobot tapped one of the cockpit pods, and its glass dome slid open. He climbed into the padded seat, and his software set to work analysing the dashboard. After about a minute, he flicked a switch, and the pod's headlights flickered on and it rose into the air. A screen on the dashboard flickered on, with a picture of the Dragoon and a caption, with an arrow to either side of the screen. The cyber dragon gave the screen an experimental flick to the left. The Dragoon slid off the screen and a different mecha appeared, captioned 'Devil Ray'. He noticed that, on the far side of the cabin, a craft that looked like a robotic fish without the flippers or the lowest part of its body, and with a similar cockpit indent to the one on the Dragoon on the front, flickered to life and rose into the air about half a metre.

Swiping across again, the next diagram was marked 'Viper'. The Devil Ray deactivated itself, and a large, crimson, snake-like mech with what looked like two large turbines mounted on the back of the head, green spots along the length of its body and a cockpit indent on the top of it's head, just in front of the turbines.

Further swipes revealed the 'Armour', which was a large purple cauldron-shaped device with weaponised purple arms and tail, but no legs, the 'Interceptor', which looked like a smaller version of the Dragoon without any weapons, the 'Harvester', which also looked similar to the Dragoon, was actually a bit larger, but had proper hands and large laser cannons on the shoulders with a cockpit indent in it's oddly small chest, and the 'Hornet', which looked like armour for a cockpit pod with twin large missile launchers mounted beneath it.

Lync noticed, and looked over at Polarus, Whirlwind and Technow. "The Dragoon still needs some finishing touches, so if you all want to get in one of the cockpits and play around with some of my inventions to, ah, pass the time, go ahead. Tell your cyborg friend that too. Just don't destroy anything, heaven knows I had a tough time reconstructing half of these after they were destroyed in previous battles with my ex-nemesis, and don't use the Armour," Lync gestured to the purple cauldron-like mech with two arms and a tail.

"Why not?" Polarus questioned.

"I haven't been able to find a staple power source for it yet. It sucks up power like you and I breathe air," Lync explained.

So the night passed. Lync had built a lot of stuff, and it was all fun to play around with.

But finally, the Dragoon was done. "I'm pretty sure that's the last of it," Lync assessed, his tail flicking in content. "I'd love to give you more of a ceremony for leaving, but the sun will go down soon and we're running out of time. You do not want to be out at night around here. There's only enough power to sustain it for two days. And I've left the weapons systems online, just in case,"

Drobot, Whirlwind and Polarus all climbed into the cockpit of the Egg Dragoon. Polarus beckoned to Technow. "Aren't you coming?"

Technow shook his head. "My duty is here. This place becomes important later. I need to get things set up. Good luck,"

The cockpit pod flew into the Dragoon, which slid through a tunnel. Whirlwind looked back at Technow and Lync. "I hope we're doing the right thing, leaving them behind," she worried, glancing nervously at the other two.

The tunnel seemed to stretch on forever. The Dragoon had to have been speeding along it for two hours before it finally emerged into open air. The jets on it's feet kicked in, and the Dragoon rocketed up into the stratosphere.

Polarus frowned. "Do you feel like we've forgotten something?" he asked the other two dragonoids. "I mean, besides Technow,"

Then Cogshine's robot dragon appeared in the clouds right beside them. "Oh yeah, the robot dragon he kept warning us about," Polarus realised. "How did I miss that?"

**Sorry for the overall shortness of this chapter. Oh look, now that I've written myself out of A Technical Tail, I'm back in the Author's Notes. Wahoo!**

**"And we missed you. Didn't we, Gaiphe?"**

**'Sure, whatever,'**

**Thank you, Riley. I just wish this thing was long enough for me to get a second song chapter in. Ah, well. Peace!**


End file.
